Sunday, June 02, 2013

Dodging the Tornadoes

It's a long, long road trip from Miami to the Black Rock Desert, The Blue Forest of Wyoming, the Pecos diamond fields of Roswell, New Mexico, and on and on and on. With a lengthy trip, there is a certain amount of stress, and at this time of year much of it comes in the forms of beep, beep, beeps on the Weather channel, warning you of tornadoes that are forming in and around your area. Hairy, when you are about to sit down to dinner at Ruby Tuesday in Hot Springs, Arkansas and the waitress comes over to tell you that two tornadoes have touched down right near you and you may want to leave to take care of things. Scary, when all night long hailstones are hitting your motel roof and the forecasters are still warning of dangerous weather. Then, the next day, you go to your favorite restaurant, Furr's Buffet, in Moore, Oklahoma, only to be greeted by signs on the interstate warning of tornadoes after 4 pm. You get out of the restaurant and realize it is almost twenty minutes to four. The side roads and I-35 are jammed and you pass all the horrendous damage of a wrecked hospital, mangled vehicles and downed homes from the last tornado here last week. You drive fast and then about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City, you see a spout in front of you and a massive dark cloud forming to the right of you. You drive right into a massive hailstorm and pull off the road temporarily to hear the stones that look like golf balls pound your windshield, Finally you are in Texas, with a car covered in debris, but you made it! You are very well aware that others were not so lucky.