Sunday, May 25, 2008

Full Story at 11

Today was a day of firsts: My first taste of Cousin Joe's favorite (and now one of mine) beer--Hopluia, a dry hopped ale done by the Cortland, NE Spilker Ales; my first hay ride on a flat pulled by a 1941 John Deer tractor (can you say adorable?) which was driven by Uncle Oran; and (cue music of doom) my first tornado warning!

After our hay ride was finished and Uncle Oran had put away the tractor, the sky grew ominously dark and it became eerily quiet. The wind started picking up, so we all headed inside. Not five minutes later and as we were getting ready to leave to head back to Omaha for the night, the wind started howling and blowing dust and rain completely horizontally. One of the farm dogs, who had never tried to run into the house before, dashed inside while Oran was looking outside. What happened next raised the hair on the back of my neck. Oran said, simply, I think we'd better head to the basement and told us our trip to Omaha would have to wait. So down we went, to the sound of the weather warning system in the kitchen. Maybe I've seen "Twister" one too many times, but I was a bit spooked by this sudden turn of events.

I don't think we were in any real danger, but the news did show a nasty storm system right over us and covering the entire SW portion of the state. Pretty surreal and freaky; a moment I shall probably never forget.

Other than the weather drama, we did have a great time catching up with my sweetie's family. They're a great bunch of folks, and I always enjoy my time with them.

More later.

~David

Postscript: We later found out that twisters, caused by the same storm that threatened us, killed seven people in Iowa, including one toddler. This is serious s**t.

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