Tornado Running

Pat and then I took turns driving up to Nebraska on Wed.  I was driving through Kansas and saw thunderclouds w/lighting straight ahead in far distance and alerted Pat that he would have to take over soon because I don't like driving in storms.  Thank heaven for the iPhone!  Pat checked and found that tornadoes were spotted in the area into which we were traveling.  We were hoping the storm would weaken before we arrived, but no such luck.  I stopped at a truck stop in Salina, KS, and after checking the weather report on the tv station in the gas station, we decided the best option was to back-track the heck on out of there!  The clouds were bizarre (Pat got a pic of one, he'll upload that later) and the air felt weird.  

Pat took over and drove us about 15 mins south.  We found an abandoned gas station off the exit and parked under cover with the old pumps.  Soon we were joined by about 10 other vehicles.  As it was not raining yet, several people were getting out and conferring.  Pat joined them, and came back to turn the radio to a local weather station the others were listening to.  It was a great station out of Salina, where we originally stopped for gas.  It was only partially helpful as we didn't know many of the neighborhoods/areas to which the weathermen were referring.  I had a state map and was trying to figure out the hotspots.  Pat was refreshing the weather map on his iPhone.  The dog was unhappy and B was pretty calm.  We framed it as an adventure - we had a good view of the storm from the big RV windows and had soup and fruit salad for dinner inside the RV.   (Later, we found out one or more tornadoes hit ground in Salina, not far from where we stopped for gas.  So going back and hanging out was the right move.)

Pat figured out the storm was about to curve around and slam into us if we stayed where we were.  We didn't have many options, so we decided to go north again, gun it and hope to squeak through a small hole in the storm.  We were really tense, it was a hard call to make - the storm was in a c-shape and we had waited to long to make retreating further south a safe option.  So we went north again, Pat driving, of course, and made it back to the very same exit where we stopped for gas the first time, and Pat pulled into that station for shelter.  The storm was strong and we were worried about hail.  Lighting was striking every second (this is not an exaggeration), in multiple locations, some close, some far.  

We heard what sounded like something loud breaking above our heads.  Moments later, the radio station reported that lighting struck a transformer in town.  Hail was in other parts of the area, but it didn't get us.  About 2 hours passed since our first stop at this station at 8pm.  B fell asleep a little after 10, and we decided it was safe enough to proceed (also, other cars were leaving too).  Heading north, we drove out of the storm, and I was monitoring the iPhone and radio for the 3 hours it took us to reach a reasonable size town in Nebraska. 

We pulled into a SuperWalmart for the night.  With my friends, I've been laughing about how funny and weird it would be to "Wallydock".  No joke, I was so incredibly happy to see that parking lot.  There were about a dozen 18-wheelers and several rvs.  Our iPhone signal wasn't working for the last hour and I figured if so many were there, it must be safe.  As I fell asleep at 1:30am, I heard another storm hit, but I passed out anyway.  Too many sleep-deprived nights kept me from staying up worrying about another tornado.  Poor Pat didn't fall asleep until 2am.