Weather Gone Wild... an interesting trip back

Sunday marked a long journey back from an amazing weekend spent covering the Bronson - Baba wedding in Houston, TX. As Jeff and I set out for home we continued to notice the joyous drop in temp the further north traveled. When we left it was a wonderful 80º degrees in Houston and as we stopped in Norman, OK to grab a bite to eat it had dropped to 67º degrees. While we were eating we overheard some other customers talking about that there was bad weather heading our way. So after leaving the restaurant we quickly found a radio station with the weather.

The closer we got to Oklahoma City the lightening started to intensify and before we knew it the storm was right over us. About that time the wonderful announcement came over the radio that Oklahoma City  now was under a tornado warning and anyone traveling on I-35 north between mile marker 138 and 143 should take cover immediately. Yeah, guess what mile mark we just pasted while traveling on I-35 north! Yep it was 140 and the hook echo was suppose to be right above us. Of course it was pitch dark so we couldn't see anything. We just had passed an Exit with places to go for cover if we needed to. This was when we knew we had to get out of the line of weather. We quickly made the worlds fastest u-turn to head south to an exit we had passed where we could find shelter. 

The next Exit we came to we saw a Days Inn so we got off at that Exit. As we pulled up to the hotel the tornado sirens were going off!!!! The only thing we could think of is grab the media cards and laptop that had our wedding on from Houston. Running into the lobby the receptionist had a blank stare on her face and wasn't sure what to do. I said where do we go to take cover from the weather? She didn't give a straight answer. Being a Kansan, my first instinct was to look for a bathroom which was near by. The weather was on the TV in the lobby as us and other travelers stayed tuned to where the storm was. I was clueless... to what the weather man was talking about because I am not familiar with Oklahoma's little towns. Thankfully some of the travelers were from Oklahoma and reassured us the tornado was close but not going to hit our exact location!  About that time TV station signal went dead and of course that was scary. The rotation dropped to the ground in Mid-city which was within 1-5 miles away. Just a little too close for our taste!!! After waiting for all to clear we made the decision after driving all day to just stay the night and finish the last leg of the trip in the morning. In the morning we left to blowing snow with the highs around 30º degrees.