Waiting for Hurricane Rita

We left Clear Lake on Wednesday, at about 5:00 in the afternoon. My husband and I each took our own cars.... I had AngelBoy and Mickey Kitty in my car (both in their carriers, of course) and he had Gracie, along with Rusty and ShadowBaby.

We drove all night long, headed towards our friends Bill & Patty in Dallas. We never made it. Dallas was just too far to drive, and there wasn't enough gas around, and not enough roads between Houston and Dallas.

Thankfully, we knew where our young 14-yr-old friend C and her parents were headed--- a little town called Magnolia. We saw the "Welcome to Magnolia" sign and my husband pulled over to the side of the road. We managed to contact them via cell phone, and got directions.

We are now all together.... Magnolia is less than two hours from Clear Lake. We left home at 5:00 Wednesday and didn't get to this house till Thursday morning. That's how long we were driving. And thankfully, we were able to find a gas station that still had gas to sell--- and only because my husband got off of the Gulf Freeway and tried to find alternate routes heading north of Houston. So we were driving, me following my husband's car, from 5:00 Wed. till 9:00 Thurs. morning. Unbelievable. I have never felt so stressful behind the wheel of a car.

There are eight people in this house, five dogs, and four cats. We sat down to dinner last night and I told everyone it felt like an episode of "The Waltons."

All the dogs are getting along, except for our Gracie. She is just used to being an 'only dog' and she wants to keep it that way, so we're keeping her away from the other four. My cats are all in the laundry room here.... they spend most of the day sleeping in their carriers, even though they are free to walk around the little room. I was happy that they all behaved in the car... I thought the long car ride would make them all sick, but I guess they knew we were trying to keep them safe, and they were just fine.

We're watching the hurricane news on television, and we were happy to see that the hurricane won't be hitting at Category-5 strength. My husband boarded-up most of the windows on our home before we left. It was sad to leave the house under those conditions, and we've never left in a storm before.

The owners of this house, who are friends of C's parents, are the most gracious couple. They've opened up their hearts and their arms to us, and my husband and I both had tears in our eyes when we pulled into their driveway yesterday morning. Had it not been for R and A, we would surely be sleeping on the side of the road in our cars. There was just no way to make it all the way up to Dallas.... we left Clear Lake too late for that trip, given the evacuation circumstances. We won't make that mistake again.

For now, all is just fine. We're all sharing in the household chores, each family has a large bedroom to share, and the house has two bathrooms. The dogs have a huge yard to run around in, the cats are as content as possible in the laundry room.

Now we're just waiting to see how and where Rita hits into the coast.