Tales from Rita:

06:00 - My cell phone rings. "Dad's already home. Get packed, and head over here." My mom called to wake me up. We hadn't expected my dad to get home so early on Thursday morning. We didn't expect to leave for Florida until atleast 9am. I struggled to get out of bed. I took a nice long shower, convinced that it was going to be my last shower in a couple of days. I packed my one bag, a carry-on, and Quesa.

07:45 - I waited in line for thirty minutes at a neighborhood gas station. One of the only places in town that was open. They only had supreme gasoline left. And they only took credit cards. I felt sorry for anyone who didn't own a credit card. You can't really survive in the world now days without one, and this was one time you didn't want to be without one.

08:15 - I arrived at the retirement community where my Grandma was waiting for me to pick her up and load her bags in my car. I went upstairs to her apartment to find she had packed five bags of crap. All crap. The five scarves she recieved for her birthday the weekend before. Her alarm clock because she said she had a doc appointment on Monday that she didn't want to miss. A koosie to wrap around cold drinks because she couldn't stand to hold them in her hands. I didn't want to be the bad guy, but at this point, I was scared and frustrated. I took her scarves and left them. I took out the koosie. I let her keep her alarm clock.

My parents weren't going to be happy about her bringing five bags, a purse, a pillow, a blanket, and a plastic travel cup full of water.

09:15 - We leave my parent's house. My mom, dad, and sister were riding in one car. My Grandma, Great Aunt and Quesa were riding with me. Both of us had a full tank of gas. We were banking on getting to Louisiana before we had to fill up.

12:01 - Still on the outskirts of Houston, we creep closer to Baytown. 36 miles down, 1159 to go.

15:49 - We scoot, bumper to bumper, into Beaumont. We are both at a half a tank of gas. We had stopped once in Baytown at a Chevron. No gas. No bathrooms. No employees. Seventy-five cars stopped, drove into the parking lot, looked around, and left. We went around the corner to a Pancho's. My sister and I ripped out a plant from a clay pot sitting in front of the restaurant. We each took turns squatting into the pot to relieve ourselves. Now that we were in Beaumont, pissing on the side of the road had become no big deal. Save for the truckers who couldn't take their eyes off us. Perverts.

16:32 - Still in the same spot in the same traffic jam in the same city on the same freeway. People had begun abandoning their cars and walking into the next town. Emergency vehicles had to drive on the grass next to the feeder road to get by all the traffic. And they did. They drove by all of us.

16:33 - We made a decision to turn around and go back to Houston. News of the storm put Rita's path straight into Beaumont. And if we ran out of gas in the next 50 miles, we wouldn't be far enough away. We would be in the middle of the storm. No water. No food. No shelter. No gas.

17:59 - We arrived back at my parents house. It was spooky going west, when everyone was stuck going east. We made a hot meal. I was on edge. Everyone was on edge. I knew I had to sleep. We would head out west tomorrow. By sunlight. I drank a Smirnoff Ice and a shot of Nyquil, and drifted soundly to sleep.

Day One was over.