Snow!!!

It snowed here in Houston last night!

I can't believe it, we never get snow this far south. I am also quite jealous of my friends and family back home in Louisiana. The penguin reported 4 to 5 inches of snow in our yard and I was not there to see it, or play in it, or make a giant snowman, or anything. I so would have done all those things if I had a yard full of snow! Boohoo for me.

See this is a picture of the state capitol building in Baton Rouge.

I am still loving the inch or so I got here in Houston but I wish I could have been home for what was happening in Louisiana. And for you people up north, do not rain on my parade. I have lived in southern Louisiana my entire life and only seen snow once when I was like 5 years old and even then you had to roll up the entire front and back yard to even think about making a snowman. This is exciting for me! So I went outside once the snow started collecting on the ground and made a snowman for the first time in my life. Isn't he cute!

Yes, seriously, that is the first time I have ever made a snowman or played in the snow. I had no idea what the snow would feel like or how soft it would be. I mean I even tried drawing in the snow without realizing it wouldn't make straight lines. How was I supposed to know that?

I do like the effect the jagged lines made though.

So while it is not Christmas yet, it sure does feel like it. I had a wonderful time playing in the snow. I would never want to live where it snows a lot, but I enjoyed my one white night.

Hurricane, Hurricane, Go Away!

This year's Hurricane Season is just icky!

So far I have written about Eduardo and Gustav. Now I am going to talk about Ike. I know that I have more to worry about because my home and where I live now are both on the Gulf Coast. But honestly I did not think the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast this year would all aim at those places. Remember a couple of weeks back when I showed you the map of Gustav and his projected path? Well yeah he pretty much followed that path and did some pretty good damage to Louisiana. I can say that Baton Rouge was one of the areas that was hardest hit and I still know there are people without electricity.

Here is the projected path of Ike:
And every time they update the map, the path moves closer and closer to Houston. We have been making sure everything is secure at work and we get off tomorrow and Friday so we can evacuate if we want. I am headed home for sure. I am going to pack up some clothes, pack up an ice chest of food I do not want to spoil if I lose electricity, and pick up anything of value off the ground in case my apartment floods. I am leaving as soon as I can, not because I am terribly afraid of the storm, but because I want to avoid as much traffic as I can. So I am asking again for you guys to keep your fingers crossed that my home in Houston stays safe. I will be ever so glad when this Hurricane Season is over. I do know I am glad that none so far have hit the panhandle of Florida this year. They are almost done rebuilding some roads and I am very much looking forward to being able to go camping at Fort Pickens again.

So I am off again, but I should have Internet access this time so hopefully I will not be quite so lazy and actually post some on my long weekend.

Stay safe everyone!

I am Alive

Yes, I am here. I made it through the whole Gustav Debacle okay. I ended up home in Baton Rouge for the storm. We were able to take back roads to avoid contraflow traffic and bring R's mother home to Alexandria and make it back to BR safely. While the family weekend was cut short we all still had a good time. I cooked some good rice and gravy and everyone was happy. R's family decided to evacuate north but my family all stayed in Breaux Bridge. Everyone ended up okay with no damage to homes. Fallen trees and branches were everywhere and tons of people lost power. But everyone we know came out of it okay. Our families were only out of power for a day and a half which was good. The power came back on to our house in BR after about 6 days. We were extremely lucky to have such great neighbors. Our generator of course refused to work but our neighbors were great about letting us stay with them. They plugged up our refrigerator to their generator and we put our window unit in their house. Everything went as well as could have been expected and we got to know our neighbors a lot better in the process. They are great. I know the house may not be perfect but I am so glad R bought that one because the neighbors are so wonderful.

We went ahead and packed some stuff and left for northwest Louisiana on the Wednesday night. R had a meeting scheduled up in Alexandria on the Thursday and then we had decided to go camping from there. Since we had made these reservations weeks before the storm and we knew the campgrounds had power while we still didn't, we hightailed it out of BR. We had quite a good time. We went to North Toledo Bend State Park as well as Hodges Gardens. Both parks were great. The cabins were awesome and well furnished, the weather was quite nice, and we had a great time on the lakes. We rented a boat at both parks and managed to get only a little sunburned. I will have to bring fishing poles next time we go! North Toledo Bend is a nice park and what you would expect from a campground. Hodges Gardens is really neat because it was built by A.J. Hodges. He built the lake and his home on an island and these wonderful botanical gardens with amazing waterfalls. We really enjoyed our time there and loved waking up to a lake view.

So I made it through Hurricane Gustav, had a good camping trip, and made it back to work this week. Now all I have to worry about is Hurricane Ike possibly making landfall near Houston where I live. Hopefully it stays far enough away from me. I want to be able to make it home to BR this weekend before it hits. Keep you fingers crossed for me and everyone else along the Texas coast that Ike is not a bad storm.

I will get back to more regular postings and hopefully will get some pictures of our camping trip up here too!

Getting Prepared

So things just continue to be uncertain. A few things are good though. My grandmother had surgery yesterday but is doing well enough today to be out of the ICU and should go home this afternoon. Also R's family will be in town for the holiday weekend. And reservations have been finalized for our camping trip next weekend. Things were finally all falling into place and working out, BUT, (well of course there is a but, there is always a but, and this is one hell of a big but, sorry about that, the pun was not intended but it just fits) we now have to worry about Gustav. Have you heard about Gustav yet? Well he is a Tropical Storm who will soon develop into a Hurricane and has the potential to be pretty bad. He also has one of those foreign names that are kind of fun to say. You remember me talking about Edouardo from a couple of weeks ago right? Well apparently he didn't do a good enough job on the Gulf Coast so his big Brother Gustav is coming to try and finish things. And Gustav is pretty pissed. He might be starting out slow but he is making sure to hit everything he can along his path. He actually changed course just so he could skirt around Jamaica and dump enough rain on them to do some pretty good damage. And he is toying with us, because he is a very unpredictable storm. He could hit the Gulf Coast anywhere from Texas to Florida and that has everyone pretty worried. He might get enough protein from all those fish in the gulf to build up strength and be a Category 3 or 4 by the time he reaches land. And we do not know who pissed him off or where is is going. But so far most maps forecast that he will hit Louisiana, probably somewhere right around New Orleans, which could be devastating. Especially as slow as he is moving, he could bring all sorts of rain. Perhaps you heard about Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans? Yeah well in case you didn't know today is the 3 year anniversary of the day she hit NOLA. And honestly she was bad, but what really did people in was all the rains and the levees breaking and the flooding. NOLA has had 3 years to fix the levees and make them stronger so you would think they have it all under control by now, Right? Well, you would be wrong. There are still problems with the levees and the rain from Gustav could be absolutely devastating and ruin lots of lives all over again, some before they even finished rebuilding from Katrina. This makes me pretty sad because I like New Orleans, and I want the city to do well. I want everyone who received damage along the Gulf Coast from Katrina and her little sister Rita to be able to rebuild their lives. My family was lucky enough not to get any real damage from either of those storms, but I knew plenty of people who did. Gustav does make me worry though.

Take a look at this map and you will get a better idea of why:

The arrow pointing to Home is approximately in the middle of the two places I consider Home. I am originally from a little town just outside of Lafayette, Louisiana. I moved to Baton Rouge for College and that is where R owns a house. These two cities are only about 45 miles apart and they are separated by the Atchafalaya Basin which is a big swamp. Currently they are right in the path of the storm. While I know neither home will flood, I wonder about wind damage and power outages and traffic chaos. I am planning on going home for this Labor Day weekend because I would rather be with family who have generators and such rather than alone in Houston. Plus the storm could turn and come to Houston quite easily. They are already planning evacuations in NOLA and other parts of Louisiana if necessary. This could really hurt me trying to get back to Houston for work next week. But honestly I would rather be stuck at home with family. Then I was planning on going back home next weekend to go camping. I was going to go home on Wednesday night. I wonder if the storm will have passed by then and if they will even let me get back home to Baton Rouge. I cannot decide if it would be better for me to take a few extra days off and stay in LA or if it would be better for R to take the days off and come stay with me and we can leave for camping from Houston. Gustav is screwing up all my plans. It is also making rain for my vacation which I do not like, not one bit.

So I suppose I am just here to tell you that I might not post too much in the next week because I will be having fun with Gustav then hopefully having a good vacation. Do not worry about me too much, we are pretty well prepared. Just cross your fingers and do a little rain dance to make Gustav miss NOLA and keep my family safe. I really hope I have good traffic karma over the next week. I hope everyone is safe and sound.

P.S. I am really annoyed at Gustav because he made them move up the LSU football game from 4pm to 10am and it won't be on ESPN anymore it will be on ESPN Classic which is a channel we do not catch. And Baton Rouge takes LSU football seriously, that is why they moved the game, because they knew people would be going counter to the flow of evacuating traffic just to get to the game no matter what the weather. Because as they say, It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium!