Tornado Alley

No matter where I drive alone across this country, it seems that on my way home there are almost always freaking tornadoes.

Now I have had some family members live through terrifying tornadoes on their farms, and I've heard all kinds of horror stories. I've also seen enough scary tornado movies to last a lifetime. But honestly, tornadoes freak my shit out!

Last night I was driving home from Urinetown rehearsal around 10:00 PM, and what should have been a 45 minute to an hour drive took me more like 75 minutes. It was raining something fierce and I could barely see.

The lightning was actually making things worse because it was so frequent it was having almost a strobe effect, and then it would go pitch black afterwards.

The water was accumulating (there was depth to it) on the interstate. Even though the speed limit is 65, I think I was averaging between 50-60. I even hydroplaned for a second! Not cool....

I found a semi to follow and I stayed behind it for about 50 miles. People were passing me, but I don't know how they were staying on the road even. It was so wet, and so windy. I could barely even see the road at times (which is why I was so happy to follow that semi).

I finally turned the radio on to have something else to concentrate on, besides the red tail lights of the truck, only to learn that there were SEVERE tornado warnings in the county I was in until 4:00 AM. WHY?????

One time my mom and I were driving home from Grandma's house (about 3 hours away) in a terrible rain storm and the fuse (or whatever) that makes the windshield wipers go STOPPED WORKING. Luckily, we were passing through a small town at the time, and there was a mechanic's place like 40 feet away (where they fixed it). But last night on the interstate I kept thinking, "What if that were to happen to me now? On the interstate, late on a Sunday night, and when I'm alone?"

I've driven alone across the WHOLE state of Iowa in tornadoes, from St. Louis to Chicago in tornadoes, and more... Why can't they just leave me alone? I don't want to be a fearful driver, but I kind of am.

And I feel bad for being whiney about it, since across tornado alley people probably died and were certainly injured last night, as I saw some major tornado damage on the national news this morning.