Water water everywhere.
Monday 4:30am. I get up to dress and get ready to hop in the car with my mom and head out of Baytown to get to Hobby to catch my 7am flight to Atlanta where I will trade planes and head up to Charlotte, North Carolina where my grandmother will pick me up and take me to her home for a week.
It's raining.
Scaring the crap out of me our esteemed hostess appears in the hallway as I'm trudging to the bathroom to tell us she's going to get online to see what the weather is doing. She'd turn on her TV but her granddaughter is asleep on the couch. After checking the internet and seeing that it may break up before 7am (::snorts::) we run to the car in the rain and toss our luggage in and head off.
Note: we had two cars previously, but on Saturday we left the silver Taurus at Hobby for me to use to head home in.
It's raining cats and dogs and mom and I are white knuckled the entire way. We get to where we're going and get to the stop light to the road we need to turn on, it's about five minutes from the airport.
The road is closed.
We're stuck at the light for an hour and half watching it rain and the water rise up farther and farther on the sides of the road when mom goes, "Screw this, I need coffee and a bathroom." and makes her way out of the traffic we were in and onto another road. We head towards the Waffel House down that street. It's full to the brim. So we turn down the other side of the street, the most flooded side and white knuckled and praying make our way towards a little strip mall to the side of us where there's a Shipley's donuts that's open. We follow this gigantic black truck into the parking lot.
Big mistake.
Apparently that parking lot likes to dip down and then go back up and when we hit that water we started to float. My response:
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit-Sorry mom!"
I very rarely curse in front of my mother. Since she had the same mantra going in her mind she forgave me my vocalization of it.
We hit dry ground again and pulled into a parking space and just kinda sat there for a moment with wide eyes. The guy in the truck next to us was kind enough to use his large umbrella to guide mom out of the car and to a dry sidewalk while I used our umbrella to get me out. After that we headed towards Shipley's where coffee and doughnuts were procured and the call of nature was answered. Then we stood around outside watching it rain and waiting for the water to recede.
Needless to say I missed my flight.
A few hours later it did and mom was brave enough that we got back into the car and tried to make it under the highway again. No such luck. I took a look out of the window to see what the holdup was as no cars were moving and saw that the road on the other side of the highway was a river and it looked like a small car, like ours, that was trying to ford it was in trouble. So we turned to get onto the highway again and try to see if the next exit was open so we could try that one. It wasn't. So we kept going and decided the best idea was to go back to my Aunt Susan's in Northern Houston and see what was up.
Southeast Houston was basically closed off according to the news that we caught on my aunt's TV, and more rain was in the forcast for the next day, meaning possibly no Hobby again. So mom started making phone calls while I tried to get a nap. She managed to get my flight changed out of Hobby to Intercontenental and we were off again heading up to Intercontenental where we would get a hotel room and take the shuttle in the morning.
I made that flight and made it to my grandmother's place. I had a fun time in North Carolina. We visited the over 100 year old family farm and watered the small garden they have. We visited the pre-Civil War era family house where my aunt and her daughter lives and there I got six pieces of pottery hand made by my aunt's daughter to use for my omiyage (gifts) in Japan. And of course there was the over 100 year old house in town that I stayed at. It was a very nice trip and I especially enjoyed the incredible storm we had Friday afternoon. There's nothing like sitting in a room in a 100 year old house with the power out and watching a storm blow through.
Saturday I hopped back onto a plane and made my way back to Texas. And I can honestly say I didn't throw up at all on any of my flights. ^_^ Then I got my car out of Hobby, which was dry, hopped on 45 and made my way back to East Texas, via a detour onto I-10 and then 610 and then back onto 45 because 45 was closed around the downtown area.
So now I'm back in East Texas and next week I'm heading for SM for a week. And when I get back from SM it'll be packing time!
Oy.
It's raining.
Scaring the crap out of me our esteemed hostess appears in the hallway as I'm trudging to the bathroom to tell us she's going to get online to see what the weather is doing. She'd turn on her TV but her granddaughter is asleep on the couch. After checking the internet and seeing that it may break up before 7am (::snorts::) we run to the car in the rain and toss our luggage in and head off.
Note: we had two cars previously, but on Saturday we left the silver Taurus at Hobby for me to use to head home in.
It's raining cats and dogs and mom and I are white knuckled the entire way. We get to where we're going and get to the stop light to the road we need to turn on, it's about five minutes from the airport.
The road is closed.
We're stuck at the light for an hour and half watching it rain and the water rise up farther and farther on the sides of the road when mom goes, "Screw this, I need coffee and a bathroom." and makes her way out of the traffic we were in and onto another road. We head towards the Waffel House down that street. It's full to the brim. So we turn down the other side of the street, the most flooded side and white knuckled and praying make our way towards a little strip mall to the side of us where there's a Shipley's donuts that's open. We follow this gigantic black truck into the parking lot.
Big mistake.
Apparently that parking lot likes to dip down and then go back up and when we hit that water we started to float. My response:
"Ohshitohshitohshitohshit-Sorry mom!"
I very rarely curse in front of my mother. Since she had the same mantra going in her mind she forgave me my vocalization of it.
We hit dry ground again and pulled into a parking space and just kinda sat there for a moment with wide eyes. The guy in the truck next to us was kind enough to use his large umbrella to guide mom out of the car and to a dry sidewalk while I used our umbrella to get me out. After that we headed towards Shipley's where coffee and doughnuts were procured and the call of nature was answered. Then we stood around outside watching it rain and waiting for the water to recede.
Needless to say I missed my flight.
A few hours later it did and mom was brave enough that we got back into the car and tried to make it under the highway again. No such luck. I took a look out of the window to see what the holdup was as no cars were moving and saw that the road on the other side of the highway was a river and it looked like a small car, like ours, that was trying to ford it was in trouble. So we turned to get onto the highway again and try to see if the next exit was open so we could try that one. It wasn't. So we kept going and decided the best idea was to go back to my Aunt Susan's in Northern Houston and see what was up.
Southeast Houston was basically closed off according to the news that we caught on my aunt's TV, and more rain was in the forcast for the next day, meaning possibly no Hobby again. So mom started making phone calls while I tried to get a nap. She managed to get my flight changed out of Hobby to Intercontenental and we were off again heading up to Intercontenental where we would get a hotel room and take the shuttle in the morning.
I made that flight and made it to my grandmother's place. I had a fun time in North Carolina. We visited the over 100 year old family farm and watered the small garden they have. We visited the pre-Civil War era family house where my aunt and her daughter lives and there I got six pieces of pottery hand made by my aunt's daughter to use for my omiyage (gifts) in Japan. And of course there was the over 100 year old house in town that I stayed at. It was a very nice trip and I especially enjoyed the incredible storm we had Friday afternoon. There's nothing like sitting in a room in a 100 year old house with the power out and watching a storm blow through.
Saturday I hopped back onto a plane and made my way back to Texas. And I can honestly say I didn't throw up at all on any of my flights. ^_^ Then I got my car out of Hobby, which was dry, hopped on 45 and made my way back to East Texas, via a detour onto I-10 and then 610 and then back onto 45 because 45 was closed around the downtown area.
So now I'm back in East Texas and next week I'm heading for SM for a week. And when I get back from SM it'll be packing time!
Oy.