Safe and Sound

Dear Diary,

I know today is Monday.  The past 4 days were sort of mixed up in that crazy way when your schedule is "off".  And today there is much to do with the usual Monday buisness and the getting caught up of the end of last week buisness.

So much to be thankful for…mostly the change in direction and the change in strength of Rita. But I’m also thankful that we made the decision to leave when we did.  And we were able to secure the home as we saw fit.  While it may appear that Galveston County and Brazoria County officials have their act together – and I sincerely believe they do/did – I wonder how it would have played out if Rita came before Katrina.  I say that only because I believe the comparison of Galveston mayor with N.O. mayor is unfair.  The only part of the act that needs some fine tuning is moving the masses along the evacuation route.

Our schedule played out something like this…hubby spent most of Wednesday afternoon shopping at Wal-Mart for building supplies…son went shopping at McCoy’s to purchase plywood.  Since I had shoped for supplies the day before, I spent the day packing and cleaning and moving plants inside.  Late afternoon and evening and well into the night, son and hubby boarded up the windows.   We were able to get on the road around 10 a.m.  Thursday morning.  I had my mom and aunt with me. Hubby drove his car. And son was heading with friends in the truck to be with his brother in another town from where we were headed.  We decided to take a back road as we knew the interstate would be packed.  The back road was busy but we thought it would clear out soon.  Three hours  and 15 miles later (yes, that’s right), we turn off the parking lot to get a bite to eat and to rethink the route.  A couple of calls…a turn in a different direction…and we’re back on track. And we drive, and we drive, and we drive.  We did spend close to an hour  getting gas in a small town south of San Antonio, our final destination of the night. We had a half tank and thought  we needed the "insurance"of a full tank. Our trip took us about 8 hours. Under normal conditions, driving the interstate, it can be made in 3and half to 4 hours.  Had we not changed the route after the first 3 hours, I’m certain we would have been on the road for 18 -20 hours.

Dinner that evening was at a really nice Mexican food restaurant.  The best part was being able to surprise a family friend who works there and she had no idea we were coming.  Turns out her sister had evacuated as well to another location but came to same restaurant. So we had a mini reunion of sorts.  Afterwards, finding my friend’s house in the dark was a bit tricky but we made it.By 10:30, we were all asleep.  Up the next morning, showered and ready to go, we headed out for breakfast and the last leg of our journey another 2 hours northwest of SA.  By this time we knew that Rita was back to a 4 and the direction had changed slightly.   We were with family, minus my sons, but I knew they were fine.  Their trip to Austin was by back roads as well.

When we found out that Rita was not making a beeline for our town everyone at the lease was ready to go home…as in right now!  That was way before the plan to return was issued by the officials.  We were on the road, the back road, retracing our path from Thursday.  We made the trip in 7 hours but with several stops for gas or drink or potty, and even retuning mom to her home.

A crazy few days but I’d do it again just to be sure that my family and I are…

…safe and sound.

~Susie