RUTH & BOAZZ - (written by Ruth)
Philip, myself, Chris, April, Aaron and Amber left League City, TX. (Katelyn went with her mom/step dad to Trinity, TX. and Ashley was with her dad/step mom in Spring, TX.) Thursday morning about 11:00am and headed toward San Antonio area via backroads. We saw all the problems with I-45 and decided a trip to Centerville from where we were would be HORRIFIC to say the least and we probably wouldn't have made it there before running out of gas in traffic and sleeping out in the heat by our vehicle. Nonetheless, we prayed before we left, for GOD to lead us and guide us every step of the way and He did. I drove the trip up there while Philip navigated me through all the backroads and we were starting to run into bumper to bumper traffic as we approached the Katy Frwy. in Sealy, TX. After we made it through the traffic jams we started running low on fuel and no gas stations were open or if they were open they were out of gas. We prayed again and were getting a little tense. As we approached Luling, TX. we found a gas station that was open and had fuel. The lines were atleast 6 cars deep each pump when we got there. We had to wait about 25-30 minutes for our tank to get topped off. The pump was moving slow and started making really loud noises. We think they were starting to run out of gas. As we were pumping gas the lines jumped to like 10 cars each pump and people were very agitated and anxious. At the pump next to us an argument broke out and an angry man was furious about the situation and was thinking he should be next in line after this one lady and he started going from car to car trying to get people to side with him, so it seems. At any rate I was like Philip, let's just go, forget topping it off. I wasn't ready to hang around waiting for crazy people to do something stupid, especially with our family right next to it all. At any rate he finished topping off a few minutes after that and we left. PRAISE GOD!!! After that we drove pretty smoothly to San Antonio because they had both sides of the freeway open into the city. Once we got there we looked and looked for a hotel. We called over a dozen hotels while we were on the road before we came to the city looking for vacancies in surrounding cities and in San Antonio and found nothing. Once we got into San Antonio we found price gouging rampant. Even the run down pay by the day hotels were jacking their prices up to $79.00 a night and other places that were a bit nicer but not much, wanted $129.00 a night with 3 night stay minimum. We were like NO WAY!!! We couldn't afford it and we were just going to drive somewhere in Texas till we found something we could manage. At any rate it was close to 9pm Thursday evening and we took the kids to IHOP to eat dinner since we had been eating sandwiches and snacks on the road all day that we brought with us. Plus it gave us a moment to stretch out legs and rethink things. Our waiter was an older man named Jesus and he seated all of us and was very nice to us. He asked us where we were from and all of that and was empathetic. When we were finished with our food and were about to leave, he came back over to us and told us, that he's not sure what our religious beliefs are, but he went back into the back of the restaurant and prayed for us. He prayed for GOD to help us find a room and fairly quickly. He then said matter of factly, you will be staying in a room tonight. Don't worry. We thanked him for praying for us and told him we appreciated him taking the time to do that for us. At any rate we left the restaurant, and we went to 2 or 3 more hotels and then we found a room. It was less than 20 mins and we had a room at Days Inn past Seaworld in San Antonio. When Philip went in to ask for the room they said they had no vacancies. He then said, do you have any cancellations or anything that might be a possibility? The lady told him, as a matter of fact, I might, but I have to check. It took her 15 mins or so and then she told us she had a room. We were all excited. The price was reasonable and there was no gouging going on. Right after we got the room 3 other people came in looking for a room and they said they were all out. They saw us and that we were getting a room and said, "did they get the last room?" and the lady said "yes they did". Kind of felt bad for folks and we prayed for them too, but we knew GOD had taken care of us. We did a little sight seeing while we were there just to kill some time and then headed back Saturday morning at 2am. We arrived back home at 8:30am to our home in League City, TX. with NO damage to our home except our back fence was completely torn down. All of our animals were safe and so is our family. Philip had to return to work Sunday morning and all is well on this end. PRAISE GOD. Thank you all for your prayers. Love, Philip & Tracy
BTW, RUTH aka TENACITY does not have privilages to post here so that is why had to reply using Boazz's logon. My Ruth account and Tenacity accounts need to be deleted. I registered for a NEW account under the name RUTHEE and haven't heard anything back, but would appreciate it if I could atleast have privilages to reply to posts at times. THANK YOU very much!!!!
