Beginning of an Oddwanderer

The weather was not an auspiscous beginning. It rained,then it hailed,then the skies were dark. Black clouds were tumbleing all over the sky. The weatherman on LEX 18 on TV is adviseing everyone to seek shelter and useing my favorite phrase,"stay calm". Here I am about ready to kiss my butt goodbye and the weatherman is saying"stay calm",the world is truly upside down. Number one, I"m in a 92 Ford Econoline cargo van beside of Cave Run Lake near Morehead,Ky, and yes I know better then to seek shelter inside of said van when a possible Tornado is getting ready to drop in and pay me a most unwelcome visit. So I do what I think is the prudent thing and do a quick loadup of the van and haul a!@ for civilization,which at the time is Morehead,Ky which is approximately 12 miles away, and at least has a large Super Wal Mart I can hide out in ,or if it looks like I"m not going to make it to Wally World, at least make it to some kind of overpass. Although I can"t remember if there is an overpass between here and there? So haveing calculated said odds at lightening speed.I decide that safety is in the direction of town verses how fast the Tornado is moveing in my direction, I pull off on the main highway and hurry towards town.Not saying i broke the law by speeding,lets say I did make haste. The wind was pretty brisk and the clouds were ugly but also beautiful in their own way. An empty van is not one of those things you want to drive in a brisk wind,I put it right up there with driveing a semi with an empty trailer behind it which I have had the dubious honor of doing back when I was driveing coast to coast in a semi with a dry box behind it. Better to be fully loaded when driveing a semi and pulling a dry box or trailer behind it. Same thing when you go to brake a big rig. You would much rather have a loaded trailer behind you if you have to make a sudden stop in a semi. But I do digress so where was I? Oh yeah. On the way to Morehead,Ky and let me tell you my butt was puckered for sure wondering if my calculations were right in makeing a run for it. Finally I see the big town of Morehead up ahead,POP(approx 7,710 not counting 5 or 6 students that may have quit and gone home because of said storm). Now the rain is starting to come down in buckets now and the wipers are going at mach 2 but doesn"t seem to do anything for my visibility as I"m blind in one eye and can"t see out of the other one anyway. Well I make it across town(of course its across town) and pull in to the Wally World parking lot and I must admit I was happy to see it. The lights were out was the first deduction I made,shades of Dick Tracy, but the door was open as I"m sure the automatic gizmo needed electricity to operate,see Dick Tracey personified,lol,,.Then the hail commenced and it was huge. Golf ball size and it was the loudest banging I have heard in a month of Sundays let me tell ya. I"ve been to two goat ropeings and a rodeo or two and I"ve never seen anything like it in all my borne days. Some lady was off praying in the corner for Jesus to save her and had me wondering if I should do the same? But then my man thinking got the best of me and as I didn"t want to ruin my "macho image" (My Ex swears I don"t have to worry about that happening?) I managed to maintain my calm facade. Well we all were gawlking like a bunch of chickens when someone in the back was heard to say "wonder if it might blow these winders out"? Well I slowly started backing up and noticed that everybody else was attempting to do the same. Well to make a long story short it seems that the place I had vacated did take a pretty good hit. As I was the only one camping there It seems I had for once made a very prudent decision after all. As I was getting ready to vacate the premises the Wal Mart worker asked me where I was going? I said I"m a going home and see if it blowed away. The employee then informed me that "no that wasn"t happening as the power was not back on yet" and it seems its a policy that you can"t leave till ya been checked out. I didn"t have anything to" check out I declared" and they declared right back "thats to bad" you have to wait anyway. MMMMMMMMM, Next story maybe? Kidnapped at Wal Mart??/