Houston, Sunday, September 25, 12:00 noon

NEAL: Success! This morning I managed to find gas and a chololate cake! Kroger was open, and seemed to be operating with normal staff, although the self checkout lanes were closed (all the video screens were complaining about Microsoft runtime errors). The bakery and deli departments had their shelves fully stocked, but the canned-goods and paper goods shelves were mostly empty. I forgot to look for batteries, but that's a moot issue now anyway.

At the moment, we're still sitting around digesting cake, but the time has come to pack up the car and head back to Brazoria. I expect SH 288 will be jammed, but hopefully we can make it on FM 521.

At this point, I'm signing off from Houston. I'll post a final message from Brazoria later today.