God bless Mike and Fawn Read, angels of Sugar Creek. Late at night, when no other lodgings were available, they opened their home Tuesday night.

Truly, vacant hotel rooms IN Houston are about as plentiful as dry property on Galveston Island.

Having a certain knowledge of conditions in Houston, having spoken with people there, and feeling  somewhat skeptical about the room reservations we had made on Saturday, I tried calling Howard Johnson’s on South Main a couple times. Busy / not working. So Monday, I called the “Mother ship” … Wyndham Hotels.

They couldn’t get through to the hotel property either, but they assured me my confirmed reservation was bankable (Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Behr Sterns?) and the room would be ready for us when we arrived Tuesday night.

I think some Midwest editor once said, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

We noticed on the flight into Houston that there were a lot of dark spots around town. Southwest Airlines got us to Hobby Airport on time. We grabbed our bags and caught a cab. Didn’t take long to get to the hotel — which was dark. Scented candles placed at strategic locations throughout the lobby might have spawned sixties-era flashbacks, and the long-haired, thinly-built night clerk introducing himself and extending his hand did not disabuse me of the impression. I was SURE he was barefoot, and San Francisco was having a heat wave.

Wait a minute. This was Houston. Our cabbie, with meter running, took us to one hotel after another. I telephoned two for which I had numbers. The story was always the same — no rooms, nothing open until October.

Enter Mike and Fawn. They had offered us their spare bedroom. It was after 9 p.m. when I called Mike and asked if their offer stood. “Come on out,” Mike said, and gave directions.

After some discussion, we decided to go back to the airport — the only place likely to have rental car agencies open — and to rent a car.  Our cabbie, an angel (as Cil calls them) from Ethiopia, was ending his shift. His home was off the Southwest Freeway (which goes to Sugar Land), so he offered to lead us through the downtown traffic and get us going in the right direction.

Mike waited up for us, talked us through the final turns to his home, and conducted us to their spare bedroom. We talked about our appointment time in the morning, and he suggested the best strategy for getting through the traffic on time.

Nancy and I knew of a public parking lot, paid the six dollars, and looked forward to the first meal we had had in about 20 hous. She suggested we check with the Best Western, which had no electricity when we left and had about a foot of water in their below-street garage. We asked if they had a room. They did, but they had no elevators.

We took the room. After our day at MD Anderson (next post) and a tour of the hotel, we decided to stay at the Best Western for the duration. We are in room 322 at Best Western Plaza Hotel and Suites at Medical Center, 6700 Main Street, HoustonTX 77030. Phone 713-522-2811.

Wow! It is so nice to have so many wonderful people caring for us! In our “no room at the inn” entry, we were trying to keep a humorous outlook on a situation that had some desperate fringes to it. So many of you have responded with suggestions, schemes or offers that once again we feel incredibly blessed.  We do believe we have a solution. But first, let us share ….

Almost as soon as we posted the message, Mike and Fawn Read, who live in Sugar Land, offered their spare bedroom, noting “we’ve been PROMISED that we’ll have power by Monday.” The Read home is about 20 miles down the Southwest Freeway from the Medical Center.

I called the patient travel services at MD Anderson, and the folks there gave me a couple of suggestions, one of which was to “keep checking” (more later) on line and with hotels directly. 

Saturday I got two e-mails and then a phone call from cousin Chris Trusty in Honolulu, where, as she says “we know a thing or two about hurricanes.” Chris does her share of traveling, and thought that her gold premiere (or something like that) status with a well-known hotel chain might help her find something. She expressed some surprise that the her hotel system concierge could not find any rooms either.  Undaunted, Chris started plying her VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) connections, and actually made a connection for us north of town in the Woodlands.

Saturday night sister-in-law “Cilly” sends an e-mail  with an RV solution spelled out in some detail about how long you can get along with your own water and gas. 

Our solution: We will be staying in a Howard Johnson hotel on South Main near the Astrodome. It’s not my first choice of hotels or neighborhoods, but it will do. We had to make three separate reservations (and three separate rooms) to cover the entire time we will be there. The third reservation was for Sept. 24-26. We did this on a “Priceline” type of site called Hotwire. You do not know the specific hotel you are getting until you have paid for it. You are told (in this case) it is a “two star” hotel near Reliant Park / Astrodome. At the end it turned out to be the same hotel our at which our other two reservations were. It appears that Saturday mid-morning they were the only game in town. 

I suspect more rooms will become available as the week proceeds, but we are “locked in” now. We will be there for the duration of this trip.

Lil Bro:

Assume they have things covered at TTU? Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Pretty “rusty” and not comparable to your accomplishments, but do have some credentialing and knowledge of basics of most J subjects. Even filled in subbing (1971-R.E.Law and Pub.Rel.class) @ Kilgore Community College.

We could hitch up and be there in three days?  Transfer my meds to Walmart/Sams somewhere.  Cil was going to suggest you could also rent or borrow an rv, put it in the Anderson parking lot for those couple of days if no facilities nearby and accessible ?

Checked for couple of Texas classmates (USC) but closest is College Station/Bryan, can’t reach closest one in C.C. on the Gulf, and still have a few r.e. friends in Longview, Tyler and Dallas/FW suburbs. Among NHHS grads is one with some family in Shreveport, another has family in Lufkin. Heard Rod Calderhead (CdM-NH56) is in AR. Guffy clan (distant Daly cousins) can be found all over OK, TX and MO. Sent an email for them to read your website. Impractical?  Well, something may click in case you get stuck in Houston with no place to stay.

Much love.  Keep tough,

Richard

The operation is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 25.

As soon as we got that news on Thursday, I started working on the idea that maybe we could go home for a few days and pay bills, free the dog from the kennel mow the lawn, tend to some matters at the office, and sleep in our own bed for a few nights.

Southwest was totally booked up for Friday but had two seats on a flight through Dallas that would get into Lubbock Thursday evening. We scrambled and made the necessary connections. Had a late dinner at Rosa’s, unpacked, and crashed. Picked up the dog in the morning, started on the mail, and began making return arrangements.

Surprise! There’s not a hotel room available in Houston, as near as I can tell. Those hotels that have electricity and water (all five of them 😉 ) are full of service personnel — communications workers, electricians and such — from other areas in town to help get Houston up and running again. So I’m trying to get on a wait list, and Nancy is wagging her finger saying “I told you so.”

It turns out that we have to go back to Houston Tuesday because I have pre-operation appointments starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The second reading of my CT scan is consistent with the first: “Spots” in liver (and elsewhere) are benign. That means we can go ahead with scheduling the operation to remove the eye. However, the doctors here want to monitor my spots/cysts/lesions closely; so that means a CT scan every three months in the near term. Those scans will be done in Houston.

Scheduling the operation is the next hurdle. Because of Ike, they have a backlog of cases. Operation will be no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23. We should hear later today regarding a date.

We did get better information on the surgery recovery process. For the operation itself, they will keep me overnight. They want to keep me “nearby” for a week under a compression patch. If the one week progress is good, they release me to go home and give me a referral for follow-up. Bruising and such should dissipate in 2-4 weeks. Some follow-up can be done in Lubbock. They then will want me back for another scan and follow-up in three months.

On the Ike aftermath report, more than half Houston remains without power. Traffic patterns in the Medical District appear to be back close to normal. We had breakfast at Cafe Anderson this morning. The area around our hotel remains without power.

So the plan now is to get the date for the operation. I really want to get back to Lubbock.