To Quote Trevor's Dad: "What a Day!"

If you've read "The Hobbit", you've heard the expression "out of the frying pan, into the fire". Yes, that expression is found all over the place, but I wanted to put a Hobbit quote in my blog. I'm allowed.
I have a new take on it. Avoid hurricane season, and tornadoes will get you! One of the reasons for our nearing-on-ridiculously-cold-weather departure is to avoid hurricane season in the Gulf and Florida. Hurricane season officially ends November 30, which is right around when we'll be arriving in Mobile. Of course, hurricanes will do whatever they darn well please. If they want to form and bash up the coast in December, we can't do a thing to stop them, no matter what our calendars say. They're hurricanes, for Pete's sake! Right. Tangent. Where was I? We've avoiding hurricanes. Because they have a bad attitude and want to smash my boat (didn't know that about hurricanes, did you?). You know what we didn't count on? Tornadoes! They also have a bad attitude, but luckily didn't want to smash my boat. This time.
I know tornadoes in Tennessee are not a rare occurrence. In the Chattanooga area, however, they're slightly less common. In this glorious city, we're in a big bowl. The mountains around us buffer any storm systems that move through, takes the energy right out of them. Which has made for an overall disappointing showing of storms for the nine years I've lived here. Until yesterday.
I was sitting in the cockpit of the boat, watching the big storm roll in. I had just gotten off the phone with Trevor, who told me the storm was breaking in North Chatt. I could see the storm cell he was talking about. Very big and dark. And moving right toward me in a most spectacular show of height, wind, and lightning. I was going to stay in the cockpit until it started raining (because that's what I do, I love storms). Then I heard a freight train sound. Sorry, the freight train sound. But I thought "Nah, it couldn't be." Five seconds later, I saw swirling action. A few expletives (just one, really, repeated 3 times) burst from my mouth, and I flew into the boat, put the hatch boards in, and hunkered down. After 10 seconds of hunkering (the boat was rocking pretty wildly by now), I couldn't stand it any more. I had to see what was going on! So I peeked out of the window just in time to see the transformer by the bath house explode in a grand show of fireworks. "Wow!" Ten seconds later, it was over. There was some wind, and then there was just rain.
Naturally, I tweeted about it immediately, then poked my head outside to talk to the neighbors.
Everyone here was okay. Our boats came out unscathed. There was some damage to biminis and stuff like that. But most of the damage was done to trees. Poor, poor trees. I tried to drive out (had a Rock Band and pizza date), but was hopelessly trapped. To the immediate right was a huge tree down. To the left was a bigger tree down. Bugger. So I took the car back and went walking. You can see the exact path the tornado took when it came through. How it skipped right over the bath house, but decimated the huge trees past the dumpsters. Mighty big mess all around, and we were stranded in the middle of it. With no electricity. Fortunately, we're set up for no electricity, so I wasn't too phased by it. Just sat here and played some Solitaire. Until I saw the green lights of the next boat coming in.
Yep, my neighbor went out in this mess. His son, actually. He and two friends were getting the boat ready to go out a couple of hours earlier. They heard there was supposed to be a storm in a couple of hours, and maybe they could catch some wind. "I think you'll get more than you're bargaining for." But they were already putting in the reef points, so they'd be fine. That's what they told me. 20-year-old boys are silly, but mostly immortal. So they came back in after the storm, and I poked my head out. "I'm so glad to see you guys!" And I was. I was worried about them.
Them: "We saw 3 tornadoes! Did you see them?"
Me: "Yeah, we had one come through here."
Them: "We had one chasing us!"
They had one chasing them. Dude. Those tornadoes can be mean.
So we were all spared, luckily. There's a lot more to say, but I'm tired of repeating myself (I've told my story a few times today). This is the part where I spout out some poetic wisdom about life and how you never know what's going to happen. But it's almost midnight, and I've had a busy day.
Oh by the way, we're moved out of Trevor's apartment and onto the boat. That happened, too. Also, Trevor's dad had heart surgery. Pace maker. He's okay, too.
Busy couple of days, for sure.