Hurricane Rita update

The outlook for Austin improves by the hour, as Rita's expected path keeps creeping eastward. Two days ago we were looking at the prospect of hurricane-force winds; now we're showing less than 30% chance of getting even 40-mph winds. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be a rough Saturday; but 40-mph winds are a world better than 70-mph.

I'm safely back in Austin; left Houston yesterday afternoon. All major highways headed out were parking lots. Travel time from Houston to La Grange -- a distance of 100 miles -- was running six hours when I stopped in La Grange to have dinner.

Not that it took me six hours; more like three. But that's because:

(1) I make a round-trip journey by car to Houston and back every week; and as a result...

(2) I got bored with the trip a long time ago and started trying to figure out how many different ways I could go between Houston and Austin while still making reasonable time. Therefore I know all kinds of little back county roads that literally don't show up on the ordinary Texas state highway map, having wandered down them in my flight from monotony.

So I did not sit on I-10 for six hours. Instead I struck out through the countryside along my old friends the back lanes, and I had a pleasant, uneventful, mostly traffic-free drive, and I got home at a civilized hour.

There are, however, three families who are going to spend the weekend in my apartment as Rita refugees, and none of them have gotten here yet. I don't think any of them know the back roads.

Anyway, it looks like we'll have 22 people living in my apartment for a few days. Good times...

Y'all can keep the Matagorda-to-New-Orleans stretch of the Gulf Coast in your prayers. Wherever the thing hits, it's gonna be bad.