I know what you’re thinking, "Yeah, yeah - everyone’s got their story." That may be true, but mine was a typical Forge experience, which is never typical. You may want to get a map to keep up…

After spending part of the day Tuesday and Wednesday in 97 degree heat (110 heat index) fortifying the two-story Forge castle in League City, I planned on heading out of town at 4am Thursday to beat the traffic (commence laughing now). My wife and kids had already evacuated to east Texas early Wednesday morning without any trouble.

My sister-in-law and her teenage daughter spent the night and followed me the next day. As we passed the toll way, the sign said that the fees were waived, but traffic was still flowing well and I wanted to keep going up 45. By the time we reached the loop, traffic was just barely creeping along. The on-ramp to the east-bound loop was blocked off. I didn’t know why (do now) and was frustrated.

It was at this point I made, I believe, a critical decision - to not run my truck’s air conditioner.

After hardly moving at all, I dubbed 610 as the official "Undocumented Evacuation Route", and sped through the barrels and around the sawhorses and was soon back on my way at a fast pace. This must have saved us maybe four hours or so.

By this time I had decided to take 59, but missed the exit ramp. I didn’t see it, my sister-in-law didn’t see it. Where was it?!

We were then going to exit 45 to see what it was like, but it was also blocked! This time there was one of Houston’s finest guarding it to make sure no one could get out of town. So we passed that exit up and got off the next available one.

We then snaked around until we found an open convenience store on Main. After acquiring maps and food, we decided to get back on the loop and go up 59.

Once on 59 we stayed on the feeder as the traffic was flowing much better than on the freeway itself. We pulled into a gas station at Aldine-Bender and regrouped again. Our new plan involved heading east on 1960. We could hit either 321 in Dayton or 146 in Liberty and head north.

1960 was a virtual parking lot as well. In Kingwood there is a long stretch of strip centers on the right all with connected parking lots, so I exited and passed up about 50 cars or so and then got back in line. From there it was nothing but stop-and-crawl.

As we reached the more rural area, an interesting phenomenon took shape. Some people were bypassing traffic on the shoulder. This didn’t sit well with some, so they pulled over and crept along on the shoulder in hopes of stopping these "line cutters".

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The force just continues around the object. The line cutters simple drove in the grass around the self-appointed shoulder cops. This happened again and again, but people still insisted on blocking the shoulders.

I found this very amusing. The line cutters didn’t bother me as there were not really that many of them to make my trip that much longer in duration. Plenty of people were turning around and heading back, so I figured that it evened out.

And was it really wrong to drive on the shoulder? It was an extra lane so to speak. But most people, including me, didn’t use them. I just might next time.

One shoulder cop, though, made a bone-headed move in brazen hypocrisy. At an intersection, I let a young man in a red truck towing a jet-ski turn in front of me. He motioned that he and the woman in the Mustang behind him were together, so I let her in as well.

The lad in the truck had soon designated himself a shoulder cop and was also blocking line cutters. He would even force drivers over further into the grass as they passed him. He would laugh and talk back to who I’m presuming to be his mom in the Mustang.

This went on for a while until at one point the truck and the Mustang bolted out into the road and onto the opposite lane’s shoulder! He himself had become a line cutter, except in a much more dangerous way by risking a head-on collision with west-bound traffic. He wasn’t the first person to do this, but what a loser he is after trying to ban the same activity earlier.

We later pulled off into a convenience/feed store to get more food, drinks, etc. While in line, the owner announced that the bathroom was stopped-up and no longer in service. The store had ice, but no coolers to put it in. But it was a "feed store" and we found some metal pails that worked just fine.

Being able to stop at convenience stores and let our engines cool was, I believe, a stroke of luck. I had heard that cars on the highways were not allowed to exit. There must have been thousands of out-of-gas or overheated stranded vehicles that I saw over the course of our trip!

Another critical decision I made was to turn my engine off when stopped. In rush hour traffic, this is not effective, but we would be stopped for several minutes at a time, so I felt it would help save gas and keep the engine from overheating.

My niece’s cat, Mr. Kitty (used to be Miss Kitty until someone took a closer look) needed the ice to cool down as they were not running their air-conditioner as well. It was the hottest part of the day when we reached Dayton.

We decided that we were going to take 321 in Dayton. No matter how slow, we were going to start heading north. It was at this point that my sister-in-law called me and said she was running low on fuel, so we had to start planning for that.

I thought that if I had a towrope that I could just tow her small car since my fuel was still doing okay. We slowly came upon a rural house that had a sign advertising horses for sale. I figured they must have a good rope they would be willing to sell to us.

So we pulled over and walked up the dirt driveway where we saw a young girl. We asked to see her parents and she ran inside. It was apparent that these people were preparing for evacuation as well.

The man came out, and after making our request, he took me around back and we looked for anything that could be used. He didn’t have any strong rope, but did have some heavy-duty chains. However, they were either too long or needed for work.

Then he remembered that he had a tow strap in a back building. A tow strap! He sent his son to go fetch it. It was actually two that were tied together, but would work just fine. And the incredible thing is that the man wouldn’t take any money for it!

I tried to persuade him, but he wouldn’t think of it. And to be honest, these people looked like they could have used the money but their kind-hearted giving nature wouldn’t let them take any money.

That’s the great Texas spirit! God Bless them.

So we thanked them and went back to the vehicles. I secured one end to my truck, but we decided to let her drive a bit further before towing, so the rest of the strap was placed into the bed of my truck.

We later stopped at another convenience store to stretch our legs and get more supplies. We opened our hoods to let the engines cool down faster. I even poured water on them. I waited about 20 minutes for their ice machine to dump another load, and left with two more bags of the frozen nectar of life.

After a while longer we pulled over and hooked the strap to her car. I had never towed a car before and I don’t think she had ever been pulled. But we managed very well I think. The strap had some "give" in it, so I tried to accelerate as slowly as possible so as not to snap it.

However, at one point, after easing through an intersection, something happened and we finally broke it. Fortunately, there was plenty of strap left so that I could still use what was left. Again, however, we decided to let her drive the car some more.

Almost miraculously, her fuel gauge would again read 1/4 of a tank after some time of non-use. This happened more than once. She drove the rest of the way to Cleveland where we got back onto 59.

It had been dark for some time and another great blessing while on 321 was that there were no mosquitoes! If there had been, keeping the windows open to let breeze through would have been impossible. There were plenty of love-bugs, though. Annoying? Yes. Itchy? No.

There must be eleventy-gazillion love-bugs just in Dayton alone. I mean, do they really need to do all that procreating?

Once back on 59 we hooked our vehicles back together. I had the fortune of having an experienced tow truck driver tell me our tow strap was too long. He must have been a "Safe Clear" professional. I motioned that it was all I had. He said someone might try to pull in between us. It never happened.

After some time, my sister-in-law’s battery started to die out. The headlights were just about gone and one hazard blinker was not working. I had her cut off the headlights and this helped the hazards come back to full strength, but this was still dangerous.

We finally reached Livingston. I saw a Shell station at the top of a hill just off the highway. Just maybe it would have some gas since it was out of the way and hard to see. So I exited and started up the steep driveway of a small strip center.

This hill was steep! And when I started up I noticed an 18-wheeler headed our way down the feeder. I started up the hill as quickly as possible. Once halfway up I stopped and the little car kept coming up. I started easing up, but didn’t want to gun it for fear of snapping the strap again.

Unfortunately, there was another car behind hers. The brakes could hardly work since her engine was off, so she started to roll back. The other car behind her started honking, so I had to accelerate to keep them from crashing.

Soon there was a big jerk (no, not me). I honestly thought the strap had broken, but to our surprise, it was still in one piece, so I pulled her up the steep incline and into the Baskins parking lot.

The Shell station was out of gas, so we loaded their belongings into my truck and we took off again. Traffic flowed well for a while, but soon came to stop-and-go again.

There were about five school busses being escorted by a couple of police cruisers. Their sirens weren’t blazing, but they did have their lights flashing. I was right behind the one at the end of the bus line.

The flashing lights didn’t help them get anywhere quicker because no one was yielding to them in the almost non-moving traffic. But they kept their lights flashing anyway and was this annoying! Why keep the lights flashing when it doesn’t help any?

Maybe it kept me awake, though.

Then at one point I noticed that contra flow lanes finally opened up on the other side. Boy, were they moving quickly! (At least at first.)

Our side was still very slow. After about an hour I crossed over and entered onto the contra flow that had slowed quite a bit, but still moving quicker than the other. By this time my sister-in-law and niece were getting some sleep.

Most everyone remained calm and civil. At one point, though, there was a slight altercation. A semi-truck driver got into a shouting match with some guy driving a mini van. The truck driver hopped out of the cab, walked about half way, pointed his finger and shouted something inaudible to myself.

The mini van driver shouted back and the trucker got back in. This shouting incident had followed their honking match just prior. Trucker won both.

My goal was to reach Lufkin and get on loop 287 then hit 69 towards Tyler. Soon I saw signs indicating that the left lane traffic was to take a left onto 287 up ahead. So I thought that we must be getting close to Lufkin.

Around dusk we finally reached signs of civilization and at the intersection hooked a left. I asked the officer if the road I was turning onto was 287, which he confirmed, so I thought I was on loop 287 in Lufkin, but it didn’t look like a loop around any community I had ever seen.

Traffic was flowing great — going about 60 mph. ,but the road was pretty straight and not a tight circle, though it did seem to creep to the right on a fairly consistent basis. I finally consulted the map and realized that I was on U.S. 287. We had been diverted in Corrigan and were now headed to Crockett.

We came to a stop in the community of Groveton. They had one gas station that had about fifty people in line. The truck was now down to one-eighth of a tank. I decided to take a chance and drove on 94 up to Lufkin. Hopefully there would be an out-of-the-way gas station with fuel.

Sure enough, we entered the small town of Apple Springs. There was a gas station there with only about six cars in line. However, there was only one pump running so I wasn’t sure if we would be able to fill up.

At last we reached the pump and were able to fill up. I can’t describe the feeling of relief and joy we had at that moment. There was also a Subway sandwich shop there, so we also filled up our bellies with a hearty breakfast, mine being a six-inch meatball sub.

My sister-in-law drove for a while after that. We entered Lufkin onto loop 287 and made our way around to 69. At Jacksonville, I took over the wheel again and we finally made it to my mom’s place in Chandler around noon.

I had been up for 33 1/2 hours straight, on the road for 32 hours, had driven for 28 hours straight. But through all that the Lord sustained me. I never really felt sleepy except late at night on 59 before Corrigan. When traffic came to a stop I would get out, breathe some fresh air and stretch my legs, which helped.

Needless to say, after unloading the truck I fell fast asleep. While snoozing, my wife went and rescued her other sister’s family with some much-needed gas.

Holed up in my mom’s 1,700 sq. ft. town home was my Mom, my family of four and Chihuahua, my sister-in-law and niece with their cat, my other sister-in-law’s family of nine (one came in from a nearby college) and their four cats.

Yep, 16 people, five cats and a Chihuahua all in a 1,700 sq. ft. town home, but we made the best of it, even during the power outage for several hours. We were just glad and thankful to all be safe and together.