This Too, Shall Pass

Well, we made it out. We left New Orleans this morning at 3:15am. The journey, which normally would take around 4 or 4 and 1/2 hours took exactly 8 hours, much of the extra time sitting in bumper to bumper traffic both on I10 leaving the city, as well as on I55 through Louisiana and Mississippi. This evacuation was better than our first with Ivan, during which the first 10 miles took 3 hours and we lost a car due to overheating, but worse than Katrina which was smooth sailing throughout. It seemed this time around that a lot of people had the same idea we did... leave in the middle of the night. They also waited longer to open contraflow this time around (opening at 4am after we were already on the road). For Katrina, they had opened it at 4pm, about 10 hours before we left. Huge difference! In retrospect, we also should have gone west and then north, instead of North and then west. It seemed like a lot more people were headed north instead of west. Next time, if there is a next time, I'm thinking we'll leave a day earlier in the middle of the night. Convincing Jeff of that will be another issue.

We are now safely at Arthur and Lovejoy's (my boss' parents) in Pollock, LA, which is just north of Alexandria. What a huge relief it was when we pulled in their driveway! We'll likely lose power in 2 days or so when the remainder of Gustav passes over us as a tropical storm, but we are out of the way of flooding, and the major storm impacts. And more importantly, within driving distance of an operational hospital, just in case of more preterm labor issues.

Now we wait .... to see if the levees hold, to see where my doctor will be post storm, to see if our home survives another giant storm - this one coming from a different direction, to see if our lives will be disrupted again for months, to see if our city actually learned anything the first time around. Now we wait ....

Happy Freakin' Birthday.

Happy freakin' birthday to me. I was really, really hoping not to repeat my 29th birthday which was spent evacuating for hurricane Katrina. Well, here we are again.

Jeff surprised me with a little celebration last night including two necklaces, one of which I pointed out to him on one of our excursions in the french quarter (way to pay attention hubby!) and another with a small stone that looks like peridot, my birthstone. He also took me to dinner at the Palace Cafe, which was OUTSTANDING! He decided we should go there because he had heard they make a great bananas foster dessert, my favorite! We had crab cheescake for an appetizer, I had pork tenderloin stuffed with peaches and goat cheese and served over fried plaintains, and Jeff had the seafood au gratin. My entree was possibly the BEST thing I've eaten in the last year. It was absolutely phenomonal. And of course we had the Bananas Foster for dessert, which as promised, was great!

Today will be spent making preparations for the storm... boarding up the house, packing, moving all of our outdoor patio things inside, and then finally leaving New Orleans tonight. Let the birthday celebration continue!

Something to REALLY Obsess About

Well, the good news is I'm no longer the least bit concerned if we have onsies, or diapers, or any other baby supplies.

The bad news is that I'm now watching the weather channel and every other news broadcast in every second of my spare time (and when I should be working and doing other things as well) to see if the track for Hurricane Gustav will bless us with a shift to either the right, or really far to the left.

Assuming nothing changes with the track, we'll be evacuating sometime on Sunday ... but the "cone of uncertainty" is large, and the storm is still days away.