We got up at 2:30am yesterday morning to leave at 3, but didn’t end up leaving until around 3:30am. We started heading up 225 and I was thinking, “This is GREAT! We’ll be in Athens in, at most, 6 hours.” As soon as Beltway 8 was in sight, I saw nothing but lights… standing almost perfectly still. At 9:30am, we were still only 39.5 miles from where we started.
We worked our way around and through traffic for about 15 to 20 minutes, and around 1:00pmwe decided to get off of 59, and try to take some back roads. We started off with full tanks of gas,and at this time, I was down to half of that.
I was so excited to actually drive for the next 20 miles over 50 mph! My A/C was running and blowing the cold air in my face. I saw some signs that were showing the temperature at 112 degrees! We got to highway 75 and started going north. It was all good for about 2 miles, and then we were stuck in traffic again.
Every gas station we passed either had bags over the spouts, or lines that were 2 hour waits, and nothing but Supreme. The prices were still only like $2.89/gallon for Supreme, though. We got on 19, and headed east, and then north. I got down to the empty line, and called my father-in-law to let him know. Denny said if we ran out of gas, that he’d head down with a few gas containers for us, but we found a gas station that was pumping away, and only had a 20 minute wait shortly after my phone call. We only had to drive about 8 miles to find it.
We filled up with gas, still around the same price, and headed north. We had more traffic almost half the time, and got to Athens around 10:10pm. About 20 minutes later, we had reached our destination in Brownsboro. Waking up this morning, I realize that this is some of the most beautiful land in Texas. Rolling hills, big beautiful trees, and much cleaner air than Houston.
My parents left their house yesterday afternoon in Hamshire, and got to Livingston at 3:30am this morning. They left there to head for Tyler this morning after getting a little sleep.
I hope everyone’s doing ok, and staying safe.
GOOD NEWS! Rita’s down to a CAT3!