Labor Day Vacay

We're in North Carolina, (not the coast, but golf country) at the rental house my parents got, get this - 18 years ago. I haven't been here in years, I think Mr. D has been here more recently than I have, for one of my dad's birthday golf trips. It was weird coming back, and especially weird since we're the only ones here (we invited J&R to come with us, but R's parents are in NYC to see his new nephew).

Earlier in the week, Hurricane Earl gave us a bit of pause, but we realized that we weren't going to be anywhere near close enough to the coast to worry about it, so here we are, relaxing in the gorgeous weather, the faint smell of grilling in the air as the UT vs. Rice game gets started.

Thinking about the hurricane makes me think of all the "recent hurricanes, which I have been lucky enough to avoid my traveling. I remember Hurricane Rita, which caused HUGE amounts of panic, as almost all of Houston evacuated to Dallas/Austin, remembering Katrina, which struck New Orleans just weeks before. Mr. D and I had just met that summer, and his friends were trying to get me to wait out the storm in Austin with him, but I was all set to go to San Francisco for my friend Sara's wedding - and was able to move my flight up a day. The window in my office overlooked I-45, and the road was completely bumper-to-bumper with cars, and the southbound traffic was non-existent, as they had closed the road so people could use that side for northbound traffic, too. My dad took me to the airport the next morning, and the streets were deserted (Mom and little sis had gone to Dallas, but Dad was staying with my uncle who had just had surgery). Later that afternoon, they closed the airport, but, as we learned from the news in San Francisco, the storm was not nearly as bad as had been predicted.

Two years ago, as we were spending a week at my parents' house after our honeymoon, but before driving up to NYC, my Mom actually made us leave early, so that we would miss Hurricane Gustav, which turned out to be a dud of a storm.

Two weeks after that, we moved into our apartment, and my brother and a couple of his friends came up to visit for Labor day before his second year of med school at UT Galveston. While he was up, Ike hit Galveston hard, and we just had to watch the news for word, while the boys realized what they had left undone back home. My brother realized he had left all of his textbooks on the floor, while we kept reassuring another that someone must have thought to get his turtle before leaving town (despite the fact that the frat house flooded, the turtle was fine).

We've been relatively lucky to have funny stories about what happened during the hurricanes and not stories of injury or destruction (though my brother did have a huge job to deal with as fraternity president that year).