IOC Edition

Every once in a while we like to shake things up a little, just for fun. This week we decided to change around our entertainment schedule a bit. Rather than knocking off an hour or two early on Friday and going to the movies, we threw our clothes into bags and evacuated the ship and drove all night for thirteen hours to get to Texas.

So we're at the IOC, except for Tyrone who's hoping his parents will take him in. Last we heard last night on our way out, the governor of Alabama has declared a state of emergency and ordered mandatory evacuations for all counties along the coast - including the whole city of Mobile - by six o'clock tonight. They said the state troopers were going to close down all the southbound interstate lanes and use them for northbound traffic (asTyrone apparently discovered this morning). We heard this just as we hit the solid wall of red taillights, an hour and a half north of the coast. Half a million people fleeing in Alabama alone. All night we saw fellow refugees straggling north. Families crammed in pickups, dogs in the back, rich and redneck alike standing bleary-eyed around fluorescent-lit gas stations at 2 a.m.. Kids little excited, adults a little lost.

It keeps you fresh, you know, this kind of thing. Don't want to get in a rut.