I Can Dodge Tornadoes Baby

Stacie and I went down to L.A. (Lower Alabama, ya'll) over the weekend to visit my Dad. Between the construction on I-85 and the weather, it made for a lot of windshield time. We came home yesterday afternoon and were hoping to avoid bad weather, but didn't leave quite early enough.

We headed out of Dothan after eating lunch and you could tell some unfun shit was coming. It was about 72 degrees with 60-70% humidity, strong breezes and grey clouds overhead. We headed north to Auburn on back roads and then would pick up I-85 for the rest of the way to Atlanta.

We were driving through a small town about 1.5 hours into the trip when we heard the tornado sirens and the loudspeakers telling residents that a tornado had been spotted. We turned on the radio and heard that it was to our northwest with a confirmed touchdown outside of Montgomery. We were heading northeast. Hmmmm, could be an intersecting course.

Stacie learned alot of East Alabama geography as we listened to the weather alerts and she was pointing out the tornado warnings along our route. For the first time in my life, I was actually looking for good areas to bail and lay in a ditch or culvert on the road side. Before we hit Tuskeegee, we had tornado warnings to our west, north, and south. They started calling off cities and counties that we had just passed through, but it appeared we were still ahead of the cell. I was sure that we would be able to get even further ahead of it once we hit the interstate, but that was 45 minutes away and I still had to stop for gas.

We stopped for gas in Auburn and we didn't have any strong winds, so it appeared that most of it was far enough away that we should be able to continue. We got on the interstate and headed North with 2 hours of constant downpour and lower speeds. The rain never let up until we stopped to pick up Dundee from our friends. I know we need the rain here, but I wish we had either left about 2 hours earlier or 2 hours later. Of course then we would have missed all of the excitement. I was expecting some tense moments with the wide tires and rear wheel drive, but the G did great.

It should be a beautiful week here in the ATL, so I'm expecting some 2 wheel action to and from work. See everybody on Tuesday at the Bodonkey.