Harvey: the Aftermath

As soon as the storm cleared town, it was time to assess the damage and start putting it all back together. The dryer, oven, and one fridge had drowned, and there was a circuit out in the kitchen. Overall, though, it wasn't so bad. The house remained livable if a bit moldy, and everyone's vehicles survived. The dryer even fixed itself once it wasn't full of water anymore.

The first thing we did, after mopping the main floor a couple of times to get the dead frogs and roaches out, was help Scott clean out his gym. It had gotten just enough water to be gross but not enough to need renovation, so an afternoon of moving mats and gym equipment and mopping with bleach got the job done.

  

   

We didn't want to wait for a contractor to be available and demolition doesn't require much skill, so Rogue and I immediately started ripping out the bottom 18" of drywall and insulation from the first floor. The amount of mold we found indicated that this was not the first flood the house had experienced, although legend says it was by far the worst. Scott and I made an excursion to Home Depot to acquire cement board and drywalling supplies.

  

   

  

    

When that was done, we began a larger-scale demolition of bedroom 5, the room with the roof that we had tarped with marginal success. All of the drywall and insulation was removed from the walls and ceiling, and then we sprayed mold killer on the remaining structure. Danny, who had been trapped in Denver during the hurricane when the Houston airports closed, returned home and joined in on the messy fun.

Not only is this cheaper than therapy, I get paid to do it!

Everyone in the neighborhood was doing the same. Over the course of the week, the stacks of contractor bags and drywall and ruined boards piled higher along the sidewalks until most of Houston looked like a construction zone. Trash pickup couldn't deal with all the debris, making only their regular rounds to pick up a single can of garbage a week, which was laughable next to the stack of forty or so brimming bags of junk at the edge of our driveway.

The new Houston

Somehow we stuffed ourselves into the schedules of multiple contractors, and the professionals took over the upstairs room, installing a new roof, spray-in insulation, and new drywall. The contractor dealing with the main floor was a different story.

The landlord was paying us hourly to work on the house, but none of us have professional training in construction, so we had planned to limit our participation to removal of drywall and eventual repainting. But one day the contractor disappeared, and it was eventually discovered that he'd had trouble with his driver's license and been arrested as a result. His truck was impounded and his dog taken to the pound. As a personal favor, Scott picked up the pup from the pound and brought him home to us. And then we had an 8-week-old deaf pit bull to add to our list of difficulties.

You can tell I complained loudly.

Shithead, as his owner named him, was adorable, and well-behaved for a puppy of that age. I learned something about bathing a puppy, namely that I get at least as wet and soapy as the dog does. We weren't prepared to have a house puppy, though, so after a little over a week, Andrew drove out and delivered him back to his owner, who was out of jail but had no transportation.

But there was still the wall situation to deal with. I have some experience with mudding and taping from other peoples' DIY projects, so with no contractor in sight and money on the table, I dove in and did my best, teaching Rogue what little I knew along the way. One of the contractors from upstairs took time to hang the boards for us but didn't use shims, and the cement board was 1/8" thinner than the existing drywall, so we had the added problem of trying to make them match.

As of this writing, it's been five weeks since Harvey left. The fridges are both running. The oven still doesn't work but the stove does. We're on the last round of mudding, except for the front door and coat closet areas, which need structural work that we can't do. The damaged bedroom is fixed although not painted, and another bedroom is in the process of having its floor replaced, since the contractors discovered that it was at risk of collapsing into the driveway below.

The stress of living in renovation is getting to all of us, but I have to give my housemates credit for being amazingly tolerant of the whole situation even though it's obviously a major upheaval. I'm glad to be going through this knowing that all these awesome people have my back. To wax sappy for a second, in a way I'm grateful to Harvey, as it's brought us closer together and forced us to prove that as a team, we accomplish amazing things. Much love to Rogue, Scott, Danny, Mike, Andrew, Teresa, Ash, Joseph, and Austin for making the absolute best of a bad situation. I could have washed up from the road in any of a million places, and I'm really happy I landed here.

Hurricane Harvey

I'd been home for about a month, sweating in the seemingly endless Houston summer, when we started hearing predictions for a big hurricane coming up from the Gulf. We stocked up on water, canned soup, and whiskey, just like blizzard preparation in New England. The predictions for Houston wavered with the track of the storm but got steadily worse as Harvey approached. The day before it was supposed to hit, we brought what we could of our furniture to the second floor, propped the rest up on bricks, and unplugged our appliances.

Those who had cars brought them to various garages around town. Rogue and I put our bikes on the porch, flanking the front door like gargoyles showing off their asses. We secured a tarp over the section of balcony on the third floor that was known to leak in heavy rain. Then we held our collective breath.

This hand signal says Teresa does not approve of what's happening.

Friday afternoon was so quiet we wondered if it was all a joke. In the wee hours of Saturday morning I woke to howling wind and driving rain, pounding my window and flooding off the balcony. I went back to sleep, knowing we had made all the defensive maneuvers that we could and the only thing left to do was wait.

By the time dawn arrived, the air was still and dry. Saturday was as quiet as Friday and I started to think the whole thing had been a bit overblown. But the predictions for flooding were still coming, so we behaved ourselves and stayed home.

Saturday night we were into a game of Munchkin when the rain came in again, accompanied this time by constant lightning and deafening thunder. Several of us went out onto the front porch to watch the show. The water was over 18" high in the street, and Andrew playfully tried to shove me into it. I grabbed him and dragged him with me, and we went running down the road, kicking water at each other and howling. I'd never experienced such drenching rain before - it sheeted down like a bucket had been upturned over Houston. There weren't individual drops, but instead a wall of water cascading westward so hard that if I faced east I couldn't even breathe.

Ash and I went on a walk around the neighborhood, helping people who were stuck in their cars. Just around the corner from the house, we found a police cruiser drowning on the sidewalk. The officers who had been in it were standing in the open garage door of the house behind, watching it helplessly.

When we eventually returned to the house, we found water seeping in under the walls and doors. We picked up the few things that were left on the floor, and then I showered off the muck and invited everyone up to my room on the third floor. I own very little furniture, so there was room for everyone, even the dogs. Ash and Mike took the kayaks out into town, and when they returned, we were all well into the wine and the whiskey. We whiled away the rest of the night with card games, occasionally creeping down the stairs to admire the several inches of water sloshing around the first floor.

        

    

Mike promises that he used his blinker.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday - deceptively quiet and dry during the day, with floods pouring in as soon as the sun went down. The water got up to about 8" in the living room this time. On Monday we took a walk to route 59, which was under more than twelve feet of water and smelled like gasoline.

Route 59 from the frontage road

Routes 10 & 59

The only time I've seen no traffic in Houston

By the middle of the week, things were back to remarkably normal in Midtown and Downtown. Most of the businesses were open, the cars had been towed from the street (and from our neighbors' garages, which are below street level), and the sun was shining. The only clue that anything had happened was the layers of silt and grime on the sidewalks and the water stains on the walls.

Boulder to Oklahoma

My next stop was in Boulder to visit Jayne and Jon, my childhood dance teacher and her husband. I tried to bring them some lemon tarts from a bakery in Littleton but motorcycle transport had its way with them. Fortunately they still tasted good, even when crumpled into squishy yellow balls covered in crumbs.

We passed a pleasantly quiet afternoon eating, drinking, and walking the dogs. When Jon started watering the walls and roof of the house with a hose, I was confused, until Jayne explained that it dissipates the heat from the walls and helps cool the building down faster. It's like putting a cooling vest on your house.

I headed east into Kansas and then south into Oklahoma the next morning. I kept changing my mind about where I was going to go that night. There was a state park that looked good, but it was hot and I would want a shower before bed and I couldn't be sure the park would have one. After a long day of cornfields and small towns I did some extra miles in exchange for the luxury of a KOA.

Every time I go camping I'm reminded again why I do it. It's easy to forget; hotels are so nice, with the locked private rooms and the clean sheets under fluffy comforters and the ambient temperature controls. But when I finish my day zipped into a tent, listening to the cicadas and smelling the woods and watching the stars twinkle, it's always with the thought, That's why I do this. It's amazing.

When dark fell, it revealed that I'd set up my tent in the insistent glow of a street light, so I pulled up stakes and moved to a slightly darker place. With the fly left open to catch the breeze, I could see Hina peeking in at me, and it was strangely comforting to see her there. Poking through the natural joy of camping, there's always the worry that someone will try to rob me or an animal will think I'm tasty. Hina couldn't help with either of those things, of course, but when you spend so much time alone with your motorcycle, you start to imagine a personality into it. After all, it's just the two of you out there looking after each other.

Nederland, the Peak to Peak, and Conifer

On Friday morning I got up early with the intention to do some real mountain riding on the Peak to Peak Highway. Weather was clear and traffic light as I headed up 470 to route 6 in Golden, but as soon as I got into the foothills, I hit traffic. Then there was a construction zone. Then there was a giant trailer carrying another giant vehicle, averaging a blistering 11mph going through the curves and collecting a long line of cars. When the hill got steeper we dropped to 8mph.

I saw an opening in a straightaway and pulled out, passing several cars with a twist of the throttle. Then the follow car, a pickup truck with a yellow OVERSIZE LOAD sign, pulled out of traffic and into the other lane to block me. Annoyed, I took a spot behind the first car in line and stayed there. I could have beat the trailer with no problem, but I didn't want to play games with the asshole driving the follow car, lest he think it appropriate to run me off the road in the name of safety.

 

After that I got caught behind a pair of slow motorcyclists on big cruisers, who sped up in every passing zone so I couldn't get around them. Then there was another construction zone, and another. Fed up, I turned around several miles short of Estes Park and went back. Going south I got caught behind another slow motorcyclist, this one riding a Triumph Speed Triple, a bike that could run circles around Hina if its rider would only do so. By the time we dropped back onto route 6, I'd had about three curves to myself and was thoroughly annoyed with everyone.

That night I went with Steve and Ann to a party in Conifer, which was being thrown to celebrate one of their friends getting a patent on a new method of teaching music theory. The friend's band played outside under a tent, then there was a demonstration of the patented system, and then other musicians started filtering in and out of the gigging space and jamming. Ann had gotten up to sing and was halfway through a duet with Steve when the cops showed up. A neighbor had complained about the noise level. I suspect that moment will go down in history as "the night Ann brought the cops."

Hina

When I got the Honda, my first idea was to name her something in Japanese, since that's where she's from. But after Googling the translations of several appropriate words, I found them all taken by anime and video game characters and changed my mind.

What better name for a travel companion but a goddess of travel? Hina is a goddess with many different stories throughout the Polynesian islands. One story suggests that she is a guardian of travelers, and one can earn her favor and honor her with any 2 sided object, such as a coin. (from Djaunter.com)

In Hawaiian lore, Hina is mostly described as a very attractive, smart, beautiful, determined young woman pursued by men and other creatures. Hina becomes tired of living in the crowd, flees to the moon, and eventually becomes goddess of it. (from Wikipedia)

A motorcycle is a two-sided object, is it not? Done. Meet Hina the Honda.

Kitty Time

I stayed several days with Steve and Ann, the plan being to spend two days acclimatizing and then ride the mountains on the third day. They cooked for me, I cooked for them, and one night we got BBQ from a local shack. We discussed astronomy and life and travel and work.

 

There's an aging Siamese cat in their family named Loki, who is one of the shyest cats I've ever encountered. On my first visit to Littleton two years ago, I caught fleeting glimpses of him and had to be satisfied with that. It was the same last summer, although I didn't actually stay there, just visited briefly. When I stepped into their garage/workshop area this year, Steve told me to be quiet and I might get to see the cat. Sure enough, I saw his hindquarters as he vanished behind the table.

Two days later, though, he was willing to sit on the table and watch me as long as I didn't approach. A day after that, he let me get within five feet before slowly backing away. One evening we were chatting in the garage, and after a while someone noticed Loki asleep behind a piece of cardboard in spite of the fact that I was standing there talking.

"You've broken the code," Steve said. "Go pet him." I was doubtful, expecting him to levitate and disappear in a cartoony cloud of dust and fur as soon as I got within range, but I tried anyway. The little ball of fluff barely stirred as I rubbed his back, and though he didn't go so far as to purr, he didn't complain as I gently massaged his ears. There's nothing quite like the feeling of be accepted by an animal known to hate everyone. Steve congratulated me on being hired to Loki's staff.

Wendover to Denver

Tuesday started even earlier than Monday, since I'd added 250 miles to the agenda by staying in Wendover. I was up at 5am and had wheels rolling by 6am. A beautiful sunrise over the flats was a great start to the day.

I was fighting through traffic around Salt Lake City by 8am and almost crashed when the cars in front of me stopped dead from 70mph. I managed to dodge into the HOV lane and escape. The weather was beautiful and so were the lakes scattered along the road.

Close to midday I met up with I70 and took a break. Several other bikers were also hanging around the gas station, and I went to chat with one who had parked nearby. I'd parted company just hours earlier with Jon, world-touring rider from Britain and leader of motorcycle tours, and now found myself speaking to John, world-touring rider from New Zealand and renter of motorcycles to tourists. I had to smile at the irony. One day I'll join their ranks by riding outside my own country.

The ride into Colorado was warm, scenic, and uneventful. I'd planned a gas stop at exit 142 on the western slope, in the town of Palisade. When I took the exit and saw a sign for Meadery of the Rockies I added a stop. I ended up chatting with a couple who had lived all over the country and done some motorcycle touring in the west, and got a camping recommendation from the woman working at the meadery. The mead was quite good as well, and I bought a bottle to bring to Steve and Ann.

It was warm in Palisade, so I continued on wearing my jeans and armored jacket without the liner. By the time we topped 10,600 feet at the peak of Vail Pass, I was freezing. I like to combine the purposes of my stops, though, and there was no gas in Vail or East Vail, so I rode on. The highway was busy and traffic was flying even though the curves were tight, and my attention was drawn by a loaded tractor trailer doing 85mph and passing cars and other trucks. Signs placed at regular intervals warned of brake failure, and the whole situation concerned me. I stopped at Copper Mountain, where I paid $3.22/gallon for 85 octane and more than $6 for a spinach and feta croissant. Somehow I thought that a gas station in the summertime would cost less than a ski resort in the wintertime, but obviously not.

A few rain squalls near the bottom of the eastern slope soaked my jeans and gloves, but I only had 30 miles to go and decided to wait it out. The rain stopped and started and stopped and started, and was gone before I got on 470. I showed up at Steve and Ann's perfectly dry, like it had never happened.