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I’m so excited! I almost forgot the other important thing about my birthday - A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon is out! I finished The Fiery Cross last spring, and having to wait all summer for the next book was hard. Maybe I should wait to read the new book so I don’t have to wait forever for the next one to come out!
If you live in the Houston area and missed the season premieres of the shows on NBC, they will be shown again starting tonight. I looked for a similar message for channel 11 or 13, but no luck.
Days of our Lives wasn’t shown last Wednesday - Friday, but the episode on Monday did a pretty good job recapping what I missed. Whew! (Now I need to find a good recap site so I can get the little details!)
It has been a fairly quiet day today - we finished unpacking the things we brought in last night; Mike did some of the yard work and brought the patio items back out from the garage; he made me pancakes for breakfast since I didn’t have class today and he didn’t have to go to work. (Jason spent the night at my parent’s house last night.) I have worked on some of my homework, we caught up on some shows on the Tivo. Tonight we will be having dinner with my parents for my birthday. Just a quiet, simple day.
I’m feeling a bit melancholy. I’m not sure why. It has nothing to do with getting older - it probably has a lot more to do with the people I haven’t heard from today - and the people I have heard from. Special occassions seem to make me notice things like that even more than I normally would. Funny how that works. There are some people I really need to stay in better contact with. I guess it is time for birthday resolutions?
Thank you to everyone for your well wishes - I truly appreciate you thinking of me on my birthday!
We pulled into our driveway this afternoon at about 4:45 pm. The last 18 minutes of our drive were over the first 10 miles of the route we took to leave town. It took us FIVE hours to go those 10 miles last Thursday night. The fact that it only took us 18 minutes today still astounds me.
I’m glad we went to Austin, it was a fabulous visit with Tara and I’m glad Mike & Jason got to meet her too. We didn’t get to all the touristy goodies I might have liked in Austin - it took us awhile to recover from that drive - but it was such a great trip I don’t regret a single moment.
It is nice to be home - our neighbors told us everything was ok, but I wasn’t able to let my guard down until I saw it in person. A lot of pine needles, some small twigs and branches, and a small tree limb on our garage roof.
We tried to order pizza tonight because we were tired after unloading from our trip. It was a bit of a challenge though, since no one had any pizza dough!
I lucked out - Jason & I don’t have school tomorrow, and Mike is still sort of off work (he will be working from home though), so we get to celebrate my birthday together all day! I wonder if I can talk Mike into making pancakes for breakfast?
They are now announcing on the news that they will be allowing people back into Houston in stages. I totally nailed it. Now I wonder if they will go with my alphabet plan or my number plan.
We are still in Austin, and we have no plans to return to Houston for a few days. I refuse to get stuck in the gridlock that we got stuck in coming to Austin. There isn’t any traffic in Houston yet, but there is the beginning of traffic jams in Austin already - oh, and there isn’t any gas at the gas stations along the way. Mayor Bill White is on the news asking us not to come back to Houston yet, so they can keep the roads clear and get emergency vehicles through to help the places in need. So we are staying put until we get the all clear. The Hacker House for Houston Homeless is a very good place to be.
The Chronicle is starting to scare me with all of their blogs - they already have a Road Home Blog.
My parents lost power around 3:30 am and as of 11:00 am it still wasn’t back on. I talked to my neighbors and we have a tree limb down on our garage, so there might be some damage to that roof, but we never lost power so everything in the fridge should be ok.
Governor Rick Perry announced that they are going to figure out a way to get people back in an orderly fashion - I voiced my plan outloud, “If your last name begins with P-Z, you can return on Monday.” Maybe they will use the last digit of the drivers license - all the even numbers can come back on Sunday, all the odd numbers on Monday. Mine ends with a 0 though, so I guess I just have to stay in Austin!
My plan for today? Hill Country Weavers. Any other yarn shops in Austin that you want to suggest that I should visit? Maybe we’ll take Jason into downtown to see the capitol and stuff like that.
I’ll admit it - I feel guilty that I’m here in Austin and not over in Houston right now with the rest of my family and friends. Well, the friends that didn’t leave, since many of them are in Austin and surrounding cities already. Instead of waiting out the storm, we went to Whole Foods in Austin, which was a beautiful place, and now I have some brie and crackers, along with some very beautiful strawberries, waiting for me to eat later. (Really, how many commas can I put in one sentence?) It makes up for the fact that I ate string cheese and Club crackers for dinner last night.
If you want to keep an eye on the weater, you can watch here or check out the Chronicle for updates. I’ve talked with my parents and they are doing fine, although my Mom really wishes she wasn’t there. Kymberlie called and let me hear the wind outside her house. I think the fact that it is coming through at night would freak me out even more, since I wouldn’t be able to see what is going on out there.
Hang on tight, everyone. It looks like you might be in for quite a ride.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh…
We are at the Hacker House for Houston Homeless. We have brought the animals in and had our first (and hopefully only) accident. We have showered and changed. You can not imagine how icky you feel after driving with the windows down in 80-90 degree heat for hour after hour. Ugh. And the first time we saw public bathrooms was at 6:30 this morning in Giddings - we left at 5:30 pm last night, so you can do the math.
The photos recap most of the drive, but let’s see what I can add…
- It took us close to 5 hours to travel a distance that probably normally takes 30 minutes or less. If I wasn’t so damned and determined not to be sitting in my house while the wind whips around outside, that alone proably would have made us turn around. I knit while I sat with my car in neutral and with the parking brake on. I’m done with the sock now (yeah!) and just have to Kitchner the toe and weave in the ends.
- In all of the driving, I don’t think I would have ever described us as furious about it. But I understand how people on Wednesday that were still on the road last night might have felt that way.
- The sun set about 2 hours after we set out. There was a noticeable change in the temperature shortly afterwards. I’m glad we decided to set out late in the day so most of our driving was in the dark. (I’m sure it seemed strange that we were leaving at 5:30pm, but there was a reason for it.)
- The first gas station we came to was at FM 2920 and Cypress-Rosehill. It was CRAZY there. No gas, no food, no bathrooms - the store itself was closed, but the parking lot was filled with people. People were using the faucet on the side of the building to refill their water containers. They were using the electrical outlet and their cell phone chargers to make phone calls. (Get a car charger. It is a good thing to have, especially in an emergency.)
- It was at that gas station that I realized we really didn’t pack enough food. We were not prepared for no restaurants along the way. We had enough to eat though, although it was a strange mix. I brought some of our hurricane canned goods with us, and considered trying the Kramer experiment of heating up the Hormel chili right in the can by putting it under the hood. I didn’t, but that was only because I didn’t have a can opener. Lesson learned? Pack more driving food. Lots more driving food.
- Leia’s escape route kicked ass. Twice. Sure, it took us 5 hours to go like 10 miles, but the second half of her route had us as some of the few cars on the road. It was great. Meanwhile, someone needs to tell the city of Plantersville that they suck for not putting both streets on their street signs. They had one announcing the street you were crossing, but not verifying the street you were on. It was a bit frustrating.
- I talked to both my Mom and Kymberlie while driving, and they definitely helped to keep me company. The Houston radio stations were great about keeping us up to speed on what was happening on the news. Kudos to all of them!
- The cops in Magnolia tried to force us to go down FM 1486 instead of up FM 1774 as we had planned, heading right past the Texas Ren Fest. I had planned on going back to 1488, but then when we got back to 1774 it was open again, so we went on as planned. Big mistake. When you’re stopped for so long that people are turning off their cars, you know it is bad. It was very cool though that the people of Todd Mission were out beside the road with water for people. At midnight and one in the morning. We saw them twice because we finally said “screw that” and went back to 1488.
- Once we got on FM 1488, heading towards Hempstead from Magnolia, we were all alone on the road. For 24 miles. It was very weird.
- Hempstead to Brenham was crazy, but only because we were moving at a steady slow crawl. It is at moments like that that I really hate driving a stick. My left foot hurts from working the clutch. I considered trying out the cruise control, but I don’t think it will work for speeds below 5 mph
- On the far side of Brenham, where you normally turn to head towards Giddings and Austin, I noticed that they had made a contraflow of one of the other exits - so we got to use the detour and probably cut half an hour out of our drive. Whooo hoo!
- Most of Brenham to Giddings was 40-60 mph speeds. We made it there by 5:30 am, but couldn’t hold our heads up any longer. We took a nap in the parking lot of a restuarant. At 6:30 we went in, used their bathrooms, bought cokes, and headed back out.
- Giddings to Paige was again pretty nice and fast. At Paige, we took 21 to 71, and even though we both still had a good amount of gas left in our cars we went ahead and got more gas in Bastrop. We lucked out - he changed the price on the signs right after we filled up our cars! We picked up snacks and got back on the road.
- All along our trip we saw cars pulled off of the road. 290 was almost solid with cars pulled off on both sides, all the way from Hempstead to Brenham. Crazy. I don’t know if they were all out of gas or if some just decided to sleep. We wanted to do as much driving in the dark to avoid the heat, which worked out pretty well.
- I don’t think Austin has ever looked more beautiful than it has today. And Tara? She is FAB-U-LOUS. I’m so glad to be here, and I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend away. It took us 15 and a half hours to get here, including our nap-stop. I’m so glad we did it, although I know neither Mike or I expected it to take that long. We were thinking 6-8 hours, tops. Another lesson to be learned from all of this.
Hopefully, everyone in Houston will make it through the storm safe & sound.
Now we are going to crash. I need a long nap. A very long nap.
