I know many of you have been waiting for updates from our trip, so here is the first. I am always up for a good adventure, but this is one I would have been just fine without. I want you all to know that I did check the weather before our trip, and I know the Lord was watching over us.
As we approached the evening of our first days drive we had planned on eating dinner and gassing the car in Lincoln Nebraska. As we approached our desired exit, we missed it! It was under construction and we aren't even sure if it was open. We thought, oh well, there will be another exit with services soon. An hour plus later we had not spotted another reasonable exit and my gas light was on. We got off the nearest exit that advertised gas. I payed a small fortune for gas and Nicole asked where the nearest place to eat was, thankfully just five miles up the freeway. We hopped on and took the next exit. We pulled up to the Holiday Inn which had an Applebees inside and headed in with six very hungry kids. I noticed a small group of people transfixed by whatever was on the large screen TV in the Lobby. I realize they are watching the carnage being wreaked by a storm. I turned and asked the woman next to me where we were in relationship to the storm. "It's directly west and heading straight at us". Well, we had about 40 minutes until its arrival so what else is there to do but eat.
After dinner we double checked the weather and decided that we were in as good a place to wait out the storm as we were going to find. I suggested to Nicole that we get an overnight bag from the car plus anything that would be difficult to replace, like cameras. She asked why and I told her I was worried we might lose the car in the storm. We were hearded into the storm shelter of the hotel with about 75-100 other people. It was actually a hallway that could be fully sealed on the ground floor. At this stage the kids were concerned and a couple even cried. It was Codie (Nicole's 8 year old) that asked if he could say a prayer. It was such a sweet prayer and his prayer was answered. We waited for about an hour for the storm to pass, we and the car were fine.
We decided to continue driving since it was still early evening and the storm was past us. We got on the freeway, spotted an over turned truck and trailer and then realized we were being hearded right back off the freeway, we hadn't even gone 5 miles. We were rerouted onto an old highway and learned that our shelter was within three miles of where a tornado had touched down. The freeway was shut down as a result of damage and overturned vehicles. We did see several signs off serious damage but I guess we were about 30 miles from where the worst of it had been.
Looking back I realize that it was no coincidence that we had missed our Linclon exit. Had we stopped there we would probably have been completely unaware of the storm and would have continued right into it. Instead we were stopped just in time to discover our danger. We did not forget to thank our Heavenly Father for his protection. I took this picture of some of the kids while we were in the shelter. I figure it was a memory and even though it was a bit unusual it was a moment that mattered.
For those who are interested in our exact location we stopped in York Nebraska, We were between 3-5 miles from Aurora, which had a tornado touch down. Kearney was about 30 miles west of us and it was hit the hardest.
