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John Steinbeck borrowed the line from poet Robert Burns, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." And such becomes the case when a hurricane heads your way. We had her move-in date on the calendar since June. We had the date for our mission agency country retreat on the calendar for just as long. The two dates were separated by a full week, and surely all would be well. Surely nothing could cause a conflict?!

Nothing except a hurricane.
When Hurricane Harvey set its sight on landfall in south Texas, the plans suddenly became precarious. Within a day of the move-in date, we knew that event would be postponed. We didn't know how long. As we watched the storm grow to Category 4 and slowlyslowly churn towards the shore, we didn't even know if there would be much of a school left to move into this semester!

Amazingly, the university weathered the storm incredibly well, A week and two days late, students were moving on campus. But a week and two days later, these parents were on the Pacific coast of Mexico, not the Gulf coast of Texas. We made new plans. A car full of sisters and a loyal brother-in-law and an auxiliary vehicle with the best second family we could ever hope for made the trip. And this mom sat far away and second guessed and lamented missing the day and begged for photos.

As such, the road trip a week later can't be counted as a do-over, though we did bring a load of forgotten items. But it certainly did serve to redeem the missed day. We brought tech-y dad to hook up the router and make the Wi-Fi work. We drank coffee and bought a few necessities and ate a really good Thai lunch. We walked around campus and trekked across a bit of shore. We ate ice cream. And we hugged and kissed our girl goodbye, leaving confident that all is well. (and we returned to fix the Internet one more time. And we forgot keys. And still, all is well.)

Not a lot of scenery fills the landscape between here and there. It is wide-open spaces north to south, wide-open spaces east to west. And yet, "the emptiness sings." I drove home thankful and content (and even more, with a Husker game on the radio for company). The best laid plans go awry, but plan B often works out better than you might expect.