My Summer Horror Story: College Visit in Houston

Ah, the rites of passage for a middle-class teen: The college tour. Already the experience is frought with boredom and tension, plus the uncool addition of traveling with nervous and inquisitive parents. Throw in swampy east Texas during June (miserably hot, plus bugs) and the flood aftermath of a killer storm and you've got a story!

We flew into Houston and, as the plane approached, we knew there could be trouble...standing floodwater covered the low-lying areas. After we landed we realized that the low-lying areas included all the rental car agencies. As a result we were forced to take a bus to a distant, higher-elevation (a joke for Houston) rental car lot...along with everyone else who had reserved a rental car. So about ten thousand people are converging by hot, crowded bus on this isolated rental car agency whose lot is crammed with every rental car that could be rescue before the flooding.

Whatever your initial reservation was, forget it! My Mom ended up with, of course, a subcompact car with about 32 horsepower and enough trunk space for a box of Kleenex...not a strong contender against the V8-equipped civilian tanks racing around Houston's concrete arteries.

And, since we were off-course from where we thought we would be starting from (the original rental car agency at the airport), we got to play the navigation game as we drove around, desperately looking for a familiar highway. Then, once we found the right road, we got to experience Houston metro traffic in all its radiant rush-hour glory - a tense experience for two people from west Texas! If you've never seen a smoke-spewing pickup truck change ten lanes in one fell swoop you've not experienced Houston traffic.

We left the city for the college towns, replacing traffic and floodwaters (which produced a lovely humidity effect in the 100 degree heat) for regular heat and humidity (only about 98 degrees and muggy) and hordes of bugs. Touring a college campus with moist heat and bugs does wonders for your appreciation of higher education, not to mention drenching whatever shirt you wore with sweat. Word of warning: Choose your shirt wisely if you visit Sam Houston State University or Stephen F. Austin State University between April and September.

And, of course, traveling with one's mother can be both a teriffic and an awkward experience. If there are questions or conversations you do not wish to have with she who brought you into this world, do not allow yourself to be stuck with her in a car or hotel room for two days!

In the end I decided to go to a university out west, where hurricanes, floods, and bugs were in short supply.