Hurrication Day Three.......

Most of Saturday morning was spent watching the news to see just how much damage Ike did in the Houston/Baytown area. After checking in with friends and family the news was better than expected. Lots of trees, fences and roofs damaged but no major problems with our homes. The school seems to have suffered more damage than the homes in that area. The worse news was that 90% of the homes and businesses in our part of South Texas were out of power. It was pretty clear that it would be a while before we would going back to school.

The boys and I went downstairs to have the breakfast buffet at Don Shula's restaurant. It was so good and so relaxing.At about 11:00 am we started trying to think of things to do. We talked to the concierge and thought about a ride in the swamps but the weather was off and on sprinkles. So she suggested we visit the new Insectarium or the Aquarium. Great ideas until Greg suggested that we drive over to Baton Rouge and see the LSU Tigers play in their home stadium. I got on the internet and found tickets. We bought them and printed them downstairs in the lobby and by noon had 4th row tickets to the game. It didn't start until 7:00 pm so we had some time to kill.
The Audubon Nature Insectarium was walking distance so we decided to give it a try before the ballgame. Wow, what a fun place to hang out! We saw all kinds of insects from Centipedes to a pantry full of Cock Roaches! Yuk! The place was very interactive and fun. The last exhibit was a butterfly garden. So many beautiful butterflies that landed on you as they flew by. I would recommend this visit to anyone.

It took us only about 45 min to get to Baton Rouge for the LSU game. The weather was threatening and we passed by several places along I-10 that had high water from the surges casued by Hurricane Ike. But sitting on the 4th row of a great College Football game was priceless. We were so close we couldn't see the field because the football players were standing on the sidelines and blocked our view! We got to see the Tiger rolled by in his cage up close. It never rained so we had a great time. After the game we drove around campus and talked about how much fun college life can be. This just might be our new college goal!

Hurrication, Day Two......We are Outta Here!

I guess in the previous post, when I called it "Day One" of our Hurrication, that it isn't exactly accurate. See we didn't actually get in the car and leave until Friday morning, September 12th, at 7:00 am. I washed clothes, packed suitcases, cherished personal belongings, and everything I could think of to evacuate with on Thursday night and had it all by the front door. On Friday morning I woke Greg up with the update that is was headed straight for us. It was forecast to come ashore at 1:00 am the next morning.

We packed the car, got the sleepy headed boys in the car and started driving. We waited this late mostly because we didn't want a repeat of the traffic problems with hurricane Rita. But also we hoped there was a slight chance this wobbly storm would jig or jog out of our path. No such luck. Greg had made reservations in Lake Charles at L’Auberge du Lac Casino. Sounded like a fun place to wait out the storm and we were there by noon. But the storm news didn't put this part of Louisiana out of danger and we decided, while sitting in the parking lot at L’Auberge du Lac that we needed to head further east. Hey, how about New Orleans? The boys had never seen that city and Greg and I hadn't been in ages. It could be fun and only about 3 more hours down the road. So I got on the phone and booked a reservation at JW Marriott right off of Bourbon St.

Just a few hours later we were pulling into Downtown New Orleans and passing by the infamous Superdome. Our hotel was right in the middle of The French Quarter on the corner of St. Chrles and Bourbon St. We checked in and checked the tv news for updates on Hurricane Ike. All the way up here, the car radio had warned of rising water even in this part of Louisianna. The weather outside was fine with just a few sprinkles every now and then. We hoped we had traveled far enough out of Ike's reach.

Our first thing to do as Tourists' in New Orleans was to take a walk down Bourbon Street. I have to admit I was not impressed at all. It was very dirty and full of sites the boys really didn't need to see. So we quickly had a nice dinner at Bourbon House Seafood & Oysters. It was a really good meal. We walked around our hotel a little to get our bearings but it began to get dark and rainy so we headed in to watch the news about Ike.

The Hurrication had begun!!!!!!

Our "Hurrication", Day One......

The week of September 8th started off with jokes about the new tropical depression forming way off the coast. "Mrs. Vincent, we don't need to study for that test, we are going to be evacuated by Friday," my students were saying. I just laughed and told them to study, "Better safe than sorry."

By Thursday it was a real threat to the Gulf Coast and now called Hurricane Ike. I got up earlier than usual to catch the news before getting ready for school that morning. The news was a little more alarming as Ike had taken a little "jog" to the right and the Houston area was now a big part of the "Cone of Uncertainty". Many of the area schools had canceled but our's wasn't on the list. At 6:00 am I woke up the troops and hurried everyone to get dressed. Through groans and moans and disappointments about not being one of the lucky schools closing for the day, we went through our usual routine watching the news closely.

We usually leave for school at 6:40, so at 6:30 we are all just about ready to get in the car when the phone rang. It was my good friend JoAnn with the news that the school calling tree had begun and school was canceled. Yippee!!!! Just the news the boys were hoping for. Wow, if this phone call had just arrived 30 minutes earlier the boys could have slept in and I could have had a nice quiet morning watching the news. I tried to coax everyone back to bed but they were wide awake and excited about getting a few days off. Since we were dressed we decided to get in the car headed to get breakfast at McDonalds and a coffee at Starbucks.

A few side notes about this particular day, Thursday September 11th, our first day of "Hurrication".

• Christian was actually a little disappointed about not going to school because today was going to be his first 7th grade A team football game and pep rally.
• Today was also the day we were going to celebrate PawPaw's birthday. But he and MoMo were already in the Dallas area. They evacuated for the possible hurricane threat the day before to miss the possible evacuation problems that haunted everyone after Rita.
• And lets not forget the history lesson of the day. 9/11/08 was also supposed to be a day of remembering the terrorist attacks from 7 years earlier.