Rolling out part IV: Fortune favors the bold

FYI: What had caused this post to crash before was some wierd thing with the comments in "Time to Vanish"; it appears that when you click on those comments, the whole Netscape utility closes instantaneously.

As I sat in a Sonic drive-thru in Bellsville, TX., I started to concoct a new plan for how to get away from Houston, and up to Dallas. There were some facts I had at my disposal to start with. First, if there was a road on a map leading out of Houston, it was jammed. No matter how insignificant it seemed, it was bumper to bumper. It also seemed that the traffic really snarled on the approach to popluation centers from the south, than on the egress to the north. The plan I came up with was actually a pretty simple plan. I would avoid population centers and major roads as best I could. When traffic got slow and heavy, I would takea road, any road, which had the possibility of getting past the traffic. The way I figured it, if the road was going the wrong way, then I could turn around, and would not act5ually lose a lot of time. If the road did turn out well, I would save a LOT of time. So, as a net result, I would save a lot more time than I lost. I also figured that unnmarked roads would become more available as roads approached towns, and that unmarked roads would thin out, and lead back towards major routes as they left popuulation centers. So, I would just use the compass to navigate unmarked roads and side streets to get in the general direction of where I was trying to go.

The plan had a serious flaw, though, and I had to address it. Gas. This new plan would end up with me burning gas a whole lot faster than I had been so far. I figured that I would have to backtrack a lot, and that was a complete waste of gas. I still had most of a tank left, and 5 more gallons in cans in the bed of the truck. Still, I was likely to run out before I reached Dallas. If that happened, my option tree would degrade significantly. I would have to face either camping out with the truck, call for help, or I would have to strike out on foot. None of those were pleasant prospects, but I figured that I could probably get in a gas line if the tank started to get pretty dry. It would be a delay, but it was an option.

So, with a new plan in my head,  I threw the trash into an already overstuffed garbage can, fired up the truck, looked at the endless procession of cars inching along ahead of me, flipped a U-turn and drove off.

I could not, for the life of me, tell you which roads I traveled as I twisted, turned and otherwise dodged my way along. What I do know is that I eventually ended up on a paved road with little traffic headed north. I was back on 36. I kept to the plan. Every time traffic got heavy or slowed down, I would duck off the road onto whatever path I could find. Sometiems it worked out, and sometimes, it did not.  The thing is that I was almost always moving at a good clip, and in the general direction I wanted to go. An hour abnd a ahlf later, I found myself driving through Caldwell, TX. In 90 minutes, I had doubled my distance from Houston, and had covered as much ground as I had during the first eight hours.

The plan was working.

At Milano, TX., I started to tack back and forth between I-35 and I-45 going North, like a sailor tacking back and forth to go upwind. Now even the rods on the map started to open up as long as they were not going directly towards a town away from Houston. In Hearne, TX., I found what I had been hoping for; a gas station without lines. I pulled in, topped of the tanks, and got some chips and soda. I had not touched the tanks in the bed of the truck, and now I knew that I would have enough gas to make it to Dallas. I got back on the road and I ran into a little traffic on route 6 northbound towards Waco, but then cut northeast again onto route 14, and the traffic opened up.

From then on, there was almost no traffic. In Mexia, I jumped onto 171 towards the northwest. At Malone, I jumped onto 308 north at 1830 hrs, and took it all the way to I-35E. From there, it was an easy drive to Frisco, TX. As I drove along, I got to see the Texas countryside in a way which you do not get to while on the interstate. I was struck by the beauty of it. I took a few pictures to remember it.

Night fell shortly after that, and I took no more photos.

At 2030 hrs, I pulled into my in-laws place. It had taken me 13 hours, and 390 miles to get from Houston to Dallas, but I had made it.

I would find out later that a number of people did not fare so well. In fact, I think that I fared bettter than anyone else who had actually attempted to make the drive that thursday. With that in mind, I would say that my journey was an overall success. That said, the evacuation of a major city en masse is a rare event, and I would be remiss not to try to learn from it, since there will (hopefully) not be another event like it to learn from. So, here are the lessons I learned:

• Don't split up! It foretells of disaster in horror flicks, and is quite apt for our situation. Although D6 thinks it was the right thing to do, I strongly disagree. Better to have faced the worst of dangers together than to have one succumb to them alone. It was the first and greatest mistake I made in the whole fiasco, and being fortunate enough not to have lost everything by my folly, I am quite content not to repeat it.
• Conveyance. If I had to get out of Houston in a real hurry, then the truck will not do. I would have to use the motorcycle. Granted, that is the "Someone set off a WMD in downtown Houston, and I need to get out immediately" scenario, but in such a case, dual track vehicles cannot match a motorcycles ability to go around traffic. The plan would be for D6 and myself to just grab the emergency bags, and go.
• Comm. Communication was abysmal. The cellular network was overloaded, and failed. The radio stations had nothing useful to say, and it is quite difficult to access the internet while mobile. I am going to have to look into a stand-alone comm setup which is not too expensive.

So, I guess that is about it. I am sure that there are some minor adjustments to the bugout bags which I will make, but the most important thing is that I had them. While it was not needed, the bug out bags were a great backup resource had things gotten worse. Ideally, you do not want to be in a situation where your survival does not depend on whether you packed the right stuff into a schoolbag, but we would have been okay had that been the way things went.

I want to extend a big thanks to all those people who sent in offers of support. Moriarty, Sgt. B, Bloodspite, and everyone else who is too numerous to name, or who may not want their name out there, I say 'thank you.' One of the other lessons I learned is that there are a lot of good people out there. Sure, there are assholes, but the amount of aid extended to myself, and to so many others is humbling. You all are the reason why the title of humanity means something.

Respectfully Submitted,
-doc Russia