Our First Hurrication

According to urbandictionary.com, hurrication can be defined as: "evacuation from a major hurricane turned into a short holiday." So, Gustav provided the Thalgott family with our first ever hurrication. And I'd take a real vacation over a hurrication any day, that's for sure. We definitely had some 'vacation' aspects to it and all, but generally speaking I think a hurrication packs in too much stress and anxiety to make it too incredibly enjoyable.

So, now for documentation purposes, I am getting down the details of our evacuation. And it's going to be long and it's going to include a lot of pictures. Please don't feel obligated to read this. I know it could be very boring, especially for anyone who has evacuated before. It's no different than any other story, I suppose. But, being an Idaho girl from birth, I never imagined I would do this, so therefore I'm jotting it all down for the record books. So if you should choose to read this novel, you may want to grab your beverage of choice and some popcorn perhaps and get comfy and read on! But don't say I didn't warn you.

We had our car packed to the brim and all the items checked off our list late on Saturday night (Aug. 30) and I headed to bed while Garrett was still awake checking all the latest news and contraflow maps and possible routes for us to take, etc, etc. It was Garrett at his finest moment, and I'm sure those of you who know him well can only imagine him doing all of that!! I tried to go to bed at around midnight, didn't fall asleep until Garrett finally came to bed at 2:30 and then woke up at 4:30 because we wanted to hit the road at 5:30. We got all the final things ready to go and the last thing we had to do was empty all the food out of the freezer and refrigerator to throw it all away. You can pretty much bet that your power is going to be off for some time (which in our case it definitely was...), so you're told to completely throw everything away. I guess after Katrina, pretty much everyone in this city who had a home to come back to had to replace their refrigerator because of all the serious yuckies in it when they got back. So we figured we better not risk it and we threw away loads of food. I had just grocery shopped on Monday so I had a pretty stocked refrigerator and it was painful throwing everything away. I estimate I chucked about $100 worth of food. Oh, it hurt. But in the end, I'm glad we did!

So then we woke up our kids, who were not thrilled at all about being woken up when it was still dark. Tyler said "but I just went to sleep!". He was not happy, and also didn't realize he had actually been asleep for hours at that point. So after everyone went potty, we said a prayer and hit the road.

After looking at traffic reports over and over again, we decided our best bet for heading north might be to take the Causeway (the 24 mile long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain). I wouldn't have ever guessed this would be a good way to go considering it is only two lanes heading north, but it actually worked out remarkably well. I was SO relieved! So we hopped on the bridge just as day was breaking as you can see from this picture taken over the lake:

We were hoping that leaving before it was light would mean that the kids would fall back asleep for a while, but no such luck. After about an hour in the car, Sam slept for a little bit, but not much. Here are our two tired evacuees, still in their pj's:
Tyler was the hero of the morning because he very graciously offered to let Sam hold George and puppy the entire way, and I honestly think that's what got us as far as we got without stopping for Sam. He was pretty content back there, holding on to those for dear life.
A view of traffic from the front:
The view from my rear view mirror:
And this was the part that kind of left me with an eerie feeling. Everyone and their dog was heading north, and on the other side of the bridge, the only thing you would see driving were ambulances with their lights on. They were coming in huge convoys, some of about 50 or more. They were from other cities in LA and many from out of state even. And finally I realized that as we were all heading OUT of the city, they were all heading IN to the city to evacuate all of the critical care units at the hospital. At that point, I thought I was just fine in my current state and had nothing to complain about!
We had been on the road about three hours and were in some pretty heavy traffic on I-55 north by this point and Sam had already had it. He was screaming his head off. We figured we had made it about half way and the worst very well may have been over, and it was only 9:30 am, so we had the whole day to get to Jackson, MS if we needed it. So we decided to exit and we got off in McComb, MS and have never been so glad to see the Golden Arches!
We took our little break and had breakfast at McD's, along with half of the population of Louisiana. But the kids were very happy we stopped. Not to mention this McDonald's was built at an old railroad depot, so the entire thing was decked out in trains and even had a real working train that would run on tracks attached to the ceiling. Tyler thought this was heaven.

We hopped back in the car and hit the road again. We tried I-55 again and it was just stop and go, slow, slow, slow. We figured we had time, we had an atlas, so why not take more of the 'back way' and again, it turned out to be pretty good for us. We just went on rural highways the rest of the way to Jackson. It may have not really saved us any time, but it was a whole lot more enjoyable and pretty than sitting in stop and go traffic on the freeway for the rest of the way. We did have patchy cell phone and texting services throughout the day (and the next few days actually), but we weren't totally surprised since a lot of people had told us that had happened during Katrina too.

On Sunday night in Jackson, we stayed at our church's Stake Center. We got there at about 12:30 so we had a lot of our day still ahead of us. A funny side note--we had some friends of ours who were evacuating there as well and they left at 2:00 am (four hours before us), they took a different route than we did and stayed on the interstate the entire time and we LITERALLY pulled into the church at the exact same time. I was pretty darn glad we hadn't gone the way we originally planned to go. Lucky for us, though, they were there and they have kids the same ages as ours. So everyone was happy campers! Our kids were in heaven having free reign over the church building and all of the nursery toys. They were clearly very glad to be out of the car.

It was so nice to get to the church because it was a feeling of instant relief. All week before evacuating I just kept thinking that it'd be nice to even have some family about 4-6 hours away that we could go to. But we got to the church, and I had that moment where I realized that you truly have a 'church family' regardless of where you are. We were welcomed by the local members with open arms and got all set up and they all kept checking on us and making sure no one needed anything. We felt very safe and watched over there. I also got to meet Shanna, a gal who I "met" through an online scrapbooking forum a few years ago. We have kept in touch with each other through email and blogs since then. She moved to Mississippi a few months ago and we always talked about getting together to scrapbook. Instead of that, she was helping take care of all the people staying at the church building! We didn't figure we'd meet under those circumstances, but it was so fun to meet her! It was definitely a highlight for me.

It was also interesting because we had literally been watching the news for two days straight and then listened to everything on the radio on our drive and we got there and had no access to any of it and suddenly, it was like "what hurricane?". It was almost easy to forget about it. People had different methods of getting updates, so we weren't totally in the dark, but it was kind of a nice break from watching it for 24/7 before we got there.

So we actually had a good time at the church and had fun people to hang out with and had fun kids for our kids to play with. All in all, it really wasn't bad.

Here Sam's just playing in the foyer...
Tyler and his best buddy Cooper, who we were so glad was there! They were inseperable.
Here's "Camp Thalgott" set up in the Sunbeam room!
We were taking down camp at this point...
So on Monday mid-afternoon, we checked out of the church because we had a hotel reservation in Batesville, Mississippi. We kept wondering if we should just cancel it and stay at the church where the kids had entertainment or go to a cramped hotel room. But at that point, it was too late to cancel, so we headed North. I was glad to be sleeping in a real bed instead of our air mattress, though! So Batesville is not at all an exciting town. It's definitely there for those who are "passing through", not staying for a while, since there are just some restaurants and a few hotels and that's it! So on Tuesday, we decided to drive to Memphis since it was only an hour away and hit Graceland...probably a place we would have never visited otherwise! (and a little ironic for me since I was a self proclaimed Elvis fanatic in the 5th grade, for all of about one month. I even memorized the lyrics to "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound dog. Bet you didn't know that about me, huh? Remember that, Kambrel?).

So the parking lot was PACKED (I guess Memphis was a popular evacuation place, since all the license plates were from LA) and the admission was expensive even with the 'evacuation discount', but we had nothing else to do. So we stayed and toured the place. The biggest downer was that we evacuated without a stroller and carrying Sam the entire time did me in. He isn't exactly a featherweight. My arms were honestly sore the next day!
First off, we toured his two private airplanes, which were funny because they were decked out on the inside with the most hideous 70's green and yellow velvet-plush decor. It was crazy! The big plane was the called the Lisa Marie. The smaller one is called Hound Dog II.



Next up was the automobile museum, where all of his original cars and motorcycles are housed. It was funny to see some of his signature vehicles.

Apparently, this is the "snowmobile" Elvis rode around the Graceland property in the 70's...
We saw the actual house next, but at this point, transferring Sam between me and Garrett made it so I couldn't take pictures. We left Graceland and found a famous Memphis BBQ joint not too far away. Oh my, yum!! Definitely made the trip worth it. It was a big hit. It would come in a close comparison with Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City. All it was missing was the Nielsens and a big black fuzz ball falling from the ceiling on to Garrett...
Evidence of the tasty meal is still on Tyler's face and Sam was pretty happy about the delicious BBQ pork he just ingested as well.
Surprising that we were getting smiles out of these kids at all after putting them in carseats AGAIN.
So Wednesday we woke up, checked out of our hotel and didn't know what to do or where to go. We had heard the announcements that residents would be allowed back home the following day (Thursday), so our initial thoughts were that we would drive half way back home and find a hotel just for that night. But there were no hotels to be found and Garrett called the power company and the city and found out that even though people were going to be allowed to come back, our area would still not have power for 2-4 more days. So we just sat there wondering what in the world to do. So we figured we'd call some of the many friends who had offered us a place to stay. We had had offers in Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma (probably more that I'm forgetting too--a huge thanks again to everyone who offered!) that were all within 4-6 hours from where we were. So we just randomly started calling and we lucked out that Emron and Marlene would take us in for a few days! They had just moved to Atlanta three weeks earlier and let us bombard their very busy lives and new home with our family. After another long (and very pretty) drive in the car, we rolled in Wednesday night.

We got to spend two fun days with them and were able to see some of the sights around Atlanta. We both thought that Atlanta and the surrounding area were SO nice. We really liked it there. Emron and Garrett grew up in the same ward and were great friends back in the day and have kept in touch really well since then, so it's always fun to get a chance to see their family (which is very rare these days). So this time was no exception. It was fun to catch up with them. Emron & Marlene have two kids similar to our kids ages, so that was GREAT too. Tyler was in heaven playing with Moses for two days straight. One of the highlights was getting to go to the Georgia Aquarium:
I think our aquarium here in NOLA is awesome, but this one (the largest in the world) is just down right amazing. The place is HUGE! They have some awesome, awesome stuff there. It was fascinating. I felt like I was walking in the ocean.






They had two whale sharks (this was the best pic I got of one) and they were awesome. Pictures don't do them justice!
The grouper were ENORMOUS:
The beautiful belluga whale:
Tyler & Moses

Sam finally gave in and fell asleep towards the end. It was a long day for him!
And this picture is just for Emron since he wanted to be famous on my blog. We did have a ball playing Ticket to Ride until the late hours, even though Emron won two in a row. We were clearly out of practice since it's been so long since we played!
Thanks to the Esplins for letting us stay! It was a nice break for us and a great time to catch up. We left Saturday morning to head back home. And boy, were we ever ready! We weren't excited for the drive, but we were so excited to be home and kind of anxious just to make sure that everything really was okay (since we had just been assuming it was all week). Our drive home went smoothly, with just one very stressful drive through rural Mississippi looking desparately for a gas station while our car was reading "0 miles to empty" for about 10 miles! I was about sick, but we finally found an oooold gas station and I've never been so happy to use an old style pump in my life! We picked up some groceries about an hour outside of the city, which proved to be a good move since the grocery stores closest to us closed at 4 and WalMart closed at 5 and we had NO food to come home to at our house.

Well, there's a wrap of our week long hurrication. It was definitely a learning experience for our family. We drove through five states, two of which I'd never seen before (TN & GA), all of which we thought were very beautiful. We learned that there is a Huddle House or a Waffle House or both at EVERY freeway exit in the Southeastern United States, regardless of the size of the town. We ate at Huddle House one time and I could go my entire life without eating there again and be just fine. We learned just how much we love Tyler's LeapPad, our car DVD player, and our GPS system. We learned all about the anxiety that comes from evacuating for a hurricane, and we said many, many, many times during our week that we honestly can't imagine what it was like for people who went through the ugly, ugly mess of Katrina. My heart has always gone out to anyone who went through it, but now it is at an entirely new level. I can't imagine what it was like to have no idea when you could go home or if you even had a home to go home to and all the headache that ensued afterwards. Crazy! We definitely feel pretty blessed after this.

Oh yeah, and not to mention that our car was completely dead on Sunday when we went to go to church. After all was said and done, it needed a new battery, but I was just so glad we weren't dealing with car problems last week! And one more thing to add, I couldn't help but think more than once how glad I am that this happened this year instead of last year, since last year would have meant me evacuating at 38 weeks pregnant. I can only imagine what would have been going through my head at that point (especially with some crazy stories I've heard from some friends who had babies while evacuated for Katrina!).

And on Monday, we were watching the news and Tyler saw that they were talking about Ike and it was this time that I realized how much he had picked up on during the week (when you would have thought he was oblivious to it all). He was asking me if what he was seeing on TV was Gustav and I told him no, that it was another hurricane called Ike. And he started crying and said "No, not another hurricane! I don't want to e-vaccum-ate again! I just want to stay here in my house in the Louzziana!" I had no idea he picked up on so much since he just thought we were on a trip. And again, I can't imagine how dealing with Katrina would have affected an entire family. And I'll agree with Tyler, I don't really feel like e-vaccum-ating again either and lucky for us (but so sorry for Texas), it looks like we're in the clear with the next one.

OK, novel is finished now. If you made it through, congratulations to you! You deserve some sort of medal...