Evacu-cating.

My sister and her husband lived the horrid tales of the Hurricane Rita evacuation. Over 24 hours in a car, worrying about gas, sleeping in the car, nothing real to eat, only warm water and record high temps. Brian and I, on the other hand, had a really easy time because we left when all of the weathermen and city officials were telling everyone, "now is the time to shelter in place."

Our under-five-hour trip was uneventful except for a little cat yowling.

The best part of the trip was arriving at Amber and Adolph's to see my sister sitting on the guest bed drinking coffee, finally able to relax after a very long and uncomfortable ordeal. It was also good to see Ethan and Kathy and I wish they could have stayed but I understand that it was rather cramped quarters.

The other best part was walking across Guadalupe and getting Thundercloud Subs for lunch and then taking a nap.

My parents, who live in Pasadena, didn't leave. They didn't leave because they don't have friends in other cities who could take them in, except for family in Wichita, KS and California and Washington. This made me appreciate Amber and Adolph's hospitality that much more. We had somewhere to go, to be safe, to take our pets, so nothing would worry our minds.

Thanks also go to Ryan, who I only barely know, for lending his futon mattress so Brian and I could sleep well. And Todd and Paul for bringing it over.

I missed ACLFest because I was told not to cover it, which is fine. Those record highs sort of made me grateful that I wasn't there.

I got back to work today and very few people were downtown, but the Starbucks in the tunnel was open, so we rejoiced and had lattes.