Tornado Warning no. 2, whoa!

So we’re driving from Chicago to Minneapolis and the sky turns green.  As Thich Nat Hanh would say, the blowing is the wind, and the spinning is the tornado.  Trout spots it out the back window at the same time Ann sees it touch the ground through a clearing in the trees as she’s driving. They sound the alarm which sounds something like this, “Oh shit!  There’s a tornado!” or “F***!”

Here’s what we do: we pull over.  Do we get out?  Do we jump in the ditch on the side of the road?  We stop under a bridge and look around.  The tornado’s gone behind us just a little so Trout takes the driver seat from Annie and guns it which causes a small fuel leak.  Can’t worry about that now, got to get the hell outta dodge.  Then, the rain starts and the Rain-X does the job that the windshield wipers don’t do anymore.  We lost that function when the control stick (for lack of a proper term) broke off early in the tour.

Trout sounds the alarm again, “Oh shit!  There’s another one!”  So he pulls over, “It’s right in front of us. You guys want to get out?”  Hesitation, it’s wet out there.  We gun it again and swerve down an exit into a gas station parking lot to take shelter but by now the thunder has started.  We made it out, we get back on the road hoping the rest of our diesel doesn’t squirt out onto the freeway before we make it to Minneapolis.         And now there’s a beautiful sunset, no need for the red ruby shoes and “no place like home chant” yet, but we make sure they’re on top of the shoe bin cause you just never know do you?

For the love of weather,
Just Paul Martin

Maddy telling that tornado to make us veggie sandwiches.