Returning From Rita - Part 1 (and only)

As The Velvet Fog relayed, our family made it successfully and without trauma to San Antonio, where we played the part of people fleeing the possibility of a hurricane to perfection. By this I mean that as soon as we got to town, we re-filled our car with gasoline, carefully stored our meagre provisions in my dad's refrigerator, and emptied some of our suitcases into bureaus in the guest room. There for the duration.

And by "duration," as it turned out, I mean less than thirty-six hours. We arrived in San Antonio at about high noon on Friday. We left San Antonio at about five p.m. on Saturday.

The out-of-the-way route had relatively light traffic both times. Each trip took almost exactly four hours. (The "normal" route using Interstate 10 between Houston and San Antonio takes about 3 hours 15 minutes, so this was by no means a hardship.)

The main lesson I learned from Hurricane Rita is that I don't care for being called an "evacuee." From now on, when describing the activities of me or my family in relation to Hurricane Rita, please refer to me as an exfiltrator (or "exfiltratee" if you prefer).

Thank you.