An eventful week….
Posted under: For those of you who’ve watched the news in the past 2 weeks, you were aware of Hurricane Rita. Well, we evacuated last Wednesday because it was just about to become a Category 5 storm and it was apparently heading towards Matagorda Bay (just south of Galveston). Well, after looking at this on the news for a couple of days and seeing the trajectory only narrowing (towards US) I made the decision to pack up all our important belongings and BUG-OUT! So, with me and Meighan packed like sardines in my little Ford Escort, and Kristen, Jeryn, Jordan and the 2 cats packed just as snuggly in the Mini-van we headed where noone else was going. To Matagorda Bay. :O) There was no way I was heading towards Dallas like all the other morons. I-45 was a parking lot so I wasn’t going anywhere near it. Well, we headed down the coast towards Corpus Christie, when we got near Matagorda Bay, we turned inland and made our way to San Antonio. We saw one area of backed up traffic, but after about 2 minutes I turned around…headed south a bit more along the coast and never saw another bit of traffic. Once we got to San Antonio, we found a hotel room at the first place we stopped at. But it was only for one night. The next morning I started making calls to find a room for around 5 nights. This was Thursday and it was still a Catagory 5 and heading towards Galveston so I wasn’t going to mess around with that. Our first few tries of finding a hotel room were miserable failures. Finally I found a place…in New Mexico. 
So I tried some more…and found another one…in Missouri. *sigh* Finally, the 9th place had one in Lubbock Texas. It was an Embassy Suites for 114 a night. Well, I was out of options. We packed up and headed to Lubbock.
After reaching Lubbock we found out that they didn’t take pets. Sure, I could try to sneak them in, but there’s no way to hide them from housekeeping. And with a 150/night charge on pets…they slept in the Mini-van Thursday night. First thing Friday morning I found a animal hospital just around the corner from the hotel that would board them for like 5 bucks a night. Whew!
By Saturday, it was pretty obvious that this storm wasn’t going to be anywhere near as strong as we thought and it was going to hit well north of Galveston, so we were ready to head back home. Nope. Not gonna happen. The cats. *sigh* The animal hospital closed on Saturday around noon and they were closed all day Sunday. So now we’re stuck in Lubbock until Monday. Well, we finally hit the road on Monday around 11am and make it back home around 1:30am. Long drive. No traffic…yet again, but a long drive nonetheless. Well before we left, I shut off the A/C and the electricity…just in case of flooding. Boy did we pay the price for THAT one. The house was just under 90 degrees, everything in the refridgerator/freezer had to be tossed, and the smell. YIKES!
Well, everything is somewhat back to normal. We lost 2 shingles on the house, and the swingset got a little banged up…but overall, we lucked out. Looking back, the only thing I would’ve changed was I would’ve called for a hotel MUCH sooner. Otherwise, I’m glad we didn’t risk it with the storm. It was one less thing to worry about. Well, that’s it from Dickinson. Just wanted to let you guys know how our weekly ordeal went. Talk to everyone later.
Uncle Chuck
I was wondering why you guys came home so late. I didn’t know the story about the pets…