Surviving Texas

It would seem that I hopped an American Airlines MD-80 to Dallas just in time to get caught in the massive grounding that's all over the news. Of course, it might be more all over the news here than elsewhere, because at one point they stated that there were over 100,000 travelers stranded at DFW airport. As of yesterday that was down to a scant 10,000, but hopefully by this afternoon I won't be one of them. After they cancelled our flight for this morning, moved us to Saturday morning, then back to this afternoon, I'm just glad to be going home. Not that this trip hasn't been delightful, what with the golf ball-sized hail and tornadoes- oh wait, I guess that deserves a mention.

So Tuesday night I was sound asleep, only to awake to an incredibly disconcerting noise outside. It was hailing, and I mean it was hailing. It sounded like somebody was chucking baseballs at my bedroom window, and I was sure it was going to break in at any minute! This is also one of those hotels with outdoor hallways and a little balcony, so I could hear the hail strikes from all over. It went on for about 15 minutes, then I just went back to sleep. Wednesday morning there were leaves all over everything, and our poor rental car was dented to all hell. Thank you, government damage waiver!

So the worst is over, right? No, Wednesday evening there were a couple tornado watch notices on the radio and TV, but I wasn't too concerned. Then I woke up at 3:00 am to an ungodly rainstorm. I looked out the window, and I could barely see through the rain. But the trees were really shaking, and I swear I could feel the building moving (and I'm on the second of three stories). I'm telling you people- it was biblical. I flipped on the TV, and every channel was running emergency tornado warnings and coverage. And we're not talking "be on the lookout for tornadoes," it was like "THIS IS NOT A DRILL! TAKE COVER! GO TO YOUR BASEMENT NOW!" And the friendly meteorologist wasn't saying it calmly like he was reading a teleprompter- there was a disturbing urgency to his voice. I was about to strip the comforter off the bed and go lay in the bathtub when I found a channel with a live doppler radar broadcast. The bad news was that we were in the dark red, but the good news was that it had almost passed. Within 5 minutes or so we were in the yellow, and the conditions outside had downgraded from "Oh my dear God" to "Wow." Apparently the closest tornado missed our hotel by about a mile, and the whole area had sustained winds in excess of 80 miles per hour- I don't have trouble believing it after seeing all the bent over road signs. Ironically, yesterday was beautiful. I sat out on my little patio for a while.

So today seems like the perfect time to get out of dodge. We're set to fly directly through the same storm system as it continues east, and set down in Baltimore right before it hits there. Ta-daaa.

Believe it or not, that was all a tangent. I started blogging today because I was checking TV guide to make sure something good was on TV when I head to the workout room (Yes! Cash Cab!), and it showed me an ad for the National Geographic special Human Footprint. It hooks you with the fun fact that the average person over the course of a lifetime will:

Eat 12,129 Hamburgers.
Take 28,433 Showers.

Think about it- the average person eats one hamburger for every two showers. Doesn't that seem like a lot? I realize there are several factors here, like cultures that eat a lot of McDonald's versus cultures that don't shower daily, but jeeze. Plus, was this a bulk meat-to-person ratio, or did they actually tally the number of burgers? If it's the latter, then White Castle and the Ruby Minis could really sway the figures. Also, it tells us that the average person will drink 43,046 cans of soda. I don't have a problem believing that, because for every non-soda drinker like me there's probably 2 or 3 Ramya "Diet Coke" Prakasams.

Wish me luck on my travels!