We're Okay in OK

I've been marinated, basted and smothered in country music and all things pop.  Other than NPR I do not listen to the radio while driving unless there is a threat of falling asleep at the wheel or in this case a threat of being gobbled up by an angry, swirling vortex with the outcome not resulting in Oz.  Having the car radio off is my way of sneaking in a few moments of quiet in an otherwise noisy world.  I listened to the radio for one reason alone today, to stay up to date on the severe weather happenings in the area.  All day today, with furrowed brow, I experienced the feeling of impending doom.  Tornado Alley is not the place to be, in a van, sleeping or otherwise, with the threat of a severe tornado looming.  I've learned the hard way that springtime is the season for tornados in the Great Plains, particularly Kansas and Oklahoma.  I have never seen a tornado, I do not have the slightest idea what to do in the event of a tornado and certainly hope I never have a first hand experience with one.  The thought of seeing a tornado while I am driving sends my mind into a tailspin.  Eyes scanning and rescanning the horizon, checking the rear view mirror, heart pounding, hands sweating, spine erect, pedal to the metal, wheel clutched, country music blasting, horizon of all encompassing gray, trees blowing sideways, birds flapping helter-skelter in the sky.  To see a bird flapping wildly and being tossed like a rag doll through the air is an utterly terrifying sight.  Each bird sighting equally as scary as the last.  I clearly saw the yellow, feathered underside of a determined bird that came just inches from my windshield and lingered in an airstream for a fleeting moment before being torn in another direction.  Being blown all over the road, my van was also falling subject to the wind.  I spent last night in my van in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with a severe tornado warning in effect.  Upon leaving Hot Springs I knew I was going to run into some storms but I had no idea the severity.  Thank goodness I slept right through the tornado warning siren that occurred at the campground at 2:30am because I would have gone into a hysterical frenzy.  The manager of the campground said that I "must have been really tired because those sirens are very loud and scary."  The severe weather warning was still in effect today so I grilled the employees of the campground about all things tornado.  I wanted to suck the knowledge from their skulls and transplant it into my brain.  I learned that if I did see a tornado while driving I am to pull over and hide in a ditch.  Right!  The only reason I stopped in Oklahoma City at all was to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial honoring the deaths that occurred during the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.  So, I zoomed to the memorial, parked the van in an empty public parking lot and sprinted to the monument.  I was moved by the items that loved ones had attached to the chain link fence surrounding the exterior of the monument to commemorate their lost.  I really wanted to take it all in as well as visit the museum but my feeling of unease was pressing me onward.  There were very few people visiting the wind blown monument, a few scattered cars on the road and only a handful of people walking around town so that was even more of a reason for me to keep moving.  With a click, click, click of the shutter and a dash back to the van, we're on the road again.  Zero to sixty in five minutes flat.  The van had stalled a few times in the days prior to this and I have seen the check engine light a time or two but surely today it is going to run like a champ.  After the first eighty dollar gas top off of the day the check engine light came on and with all of my weight on the gas petal the beater would not even hit sixty.  Just like in the movies, I took the first exit to a gas station ghost town.  Totally freaky.  What a cool shot that would have been but not today.  I'm just trying to get out of harms way.  I hobbled on to a steakhouse parking lot where I enlisted the help of an older gentleman.  To my horror the engine coolant had turned into a rusty soup.  Going the minimum speed of forty miles per hour on the highway, with the heat cranked on an eighty-one degree day, the rapidly panting animals and I made it fifteen miles further to the next town.  All windows closed except for a crack on the driver's side so the cats would not jump out, I had to dump a bottle of water on the dogs as they were sitting in the front seat because they were clearly not fairing well in the van's one hundred and thirty degree interior.  The first four car shops were closed at 3:30 on a Saturday and one shop was no longer in existence.  Some shops  didn't even open on Saturday at all.  I finally found a car shop that was not closed.  Well, they were closed but the garage door was open, so that's fair game.  I wandered inside and found someone to help.  The guys at Word's Radiator Shop were my saving grace.  A total flush of the coolant, some additional oil and fifty dollars later, I'm back on track to Amarillo, Texas.  I asked if it would be better to find a place to stay in town but was urged to keep moving, told that I would be safer in Amarillo for the night.  The sky seemed to clear the further west I moved but the winds were relentless.  I was feeling a little better, a little less like I was going to die.  An hour later, I almost peed my pants out of sheer terror.  I have never been so scared in my life.  I thought, well this is it, it's my time to go.  The black cloud in front of me suddenly smeared down out of the blue sky around it.  It was a hideous site.  I was sure that it was going to turn tornado, if it wasn't already, and sweep me up.  The people at the campground told me that tornados can be kind of hard to spot sometimes and to look at the base to see if debris is flying.  I didn't see any debris flying.  I learned that sometimes a tornado can hide behind a cloud that looks like just like the one in front of me.  They also said that tornados are usually accompanied by heavy rain.  Then, the heavy rain came which turned to hail.  I was swallowed by the black, unstable atmosphere and another wave of terror wafted over me but I did not die.  I prayed.  It was not my time to go after all.  I am now in my cozy, partially broken down van on the outer edge of the storm in Amarillo being steadily rocked to sleep in my metal cradle by the thirty plus mile an hour winds.  I'm on the outer edge of the storm now and should be safe for the night.  Tomorrow is Sunday in the Bible Belt so my furry friends and I will sit tight and wait for the auto repair shops to reopen on Monday.