The aftermath of Rita

We here in Houston were very, very lucky with Hurricane Rita. If the storm had hit here, as originally predicted, my house might be under a few feet of water at the moment. I was really concerned about the refineries getting hit and the impact on our already high gas prices.

We were sent home from work on administrative leave starting last Wednesday. We spent Wednesday packing, getting furniture put away in the back yard, and enjoying the pool. Then it started looking like we were actually going to have to leave. We got up at 4 AM and hit the road on Thursday at 4:30 AM. It took us 5 hours just to get out of Houston. We reached Brenham, about the halfway point of the trip (a mere 100 miles away) and we had been in the car for ten hours. I said to David, "you know, if we turned back, we could be home in an hour and a half". We got gas and lunch in Brenham, and forged ahead. Luckily most of the traffic started thinning out and it was smooth sailing until we got 9 miles east of Giddings. It took 1.5 hours to drive six miles and our patience was wearing thin. We kept remembering the guy on the traffic report saying it was thinning out after Giddings. We finally made it to Austin at 6 PM, almost 14 hours after we had left Houston.

Apparently they did not think it was necessary to set up contra-flow lanes on the major highways. We got lucky because 290 was the only road that was even moving out of Houston. Driving in stop and go traffic, and seeing all the empty lanes on the other side, was enough to induce road rage. Fortunately everyone pretty much just accepted it and dealt with it (except those rebels on 59 who made their own contra-flow, good for them!).

We didn't want to deal with the traffic on the way home, so when we got up on Saturday and (thankfully) saw the storm missed Houston, we headed back home, and made it in a record 3 hours. Our house is fine, and life is returning to normal. We spent yesterday cleaning the leaves out of the pool and the debris out of the driveway.

While we were in Austin, we spent some time with my friend who hooked us up with HSM, and her lovely 9-month old daughter. Apparently when you have a full-time nanny it's really hard to spend time parenting your child. I would gladly trade places with her.