Holed up in San Antonio waiting for the BIG blow to pass

We managed to beat much of the rush to get out of Houston ahead of the storm. We finished up boarding up the house and moving things to high spots on top of tables early Thursday morning. We had set a target to be on the road by 5:00 AM, but that went by the wayside when we didn't get up until about 4:45. We took care of a few last things and were actually on the road by about 9:00, still ahead of the "mandatory" evacuees out of Galveston and League City. Surprisingly traffic between Houston and San Antonio at the time we were traveling was about normal, I guess. Certainly not packed with panic driven refugees. We got to San Antonio in about 4 hours which is about right for having to make pit stops and "dog" stops. Later this evening (8:30) I talked to one of the other refugees staying in the hotel who had just arrived from Lake Jackson (one of the coastal cities just south of Houston). She said the usual 4 hour trip for them took them about 8 hours. So, you can see we were pretty lucky to leave when we did.

Everyone is doing fine. Shadow can hardly believe the good fortune she has to be sleeping "with" people. She was laid out on the floor next to Chase competing with him for ownership of the sleeping bag. She didn't win, but she seems to be happy just to be sleeping on the floor among us all just the same. We're all getting really cozy in our one room hotel room. Karen's parents and our cousin/nephew Cherokee will be meeting up with us here at this hotel later, coming out of Victoria. There could be a couple more family members with them too. We'll see how many of us actually end up here at this hotel together soon.

The Weather Channel on TV and the different storm tracking websites on the internet are our lifeblood for now. Kind of better to watch from afar than be in the thick of it. We'll see how bad it gets. So far we may be a bit lucky and it kind of looks like the initial hype for the storm may be turning out to be far more than the reality of the storm. We're hoping for the best, but I think we are prepared for the worst if it does happen.

No pictures with this one, just words. Close your eyes and think of 5 people huddled in a one-room hotel room with a dog. You can imagine what you want to make it as entertaining or vivid as you want. If you want to add comments or share your vision of what you see with your eyes closed and thinking about us, we'll confirm or refute what we can as things go on.