Chillin' in the RV

After we arrived at our campsite last Sunday afternoon, Tango and I took some time to just chill out. This was before the storm Monday morning that knocked power out to over 800,000 people. And knocked out our internet for the better part of the week. This was, in fact, relaxing before the storm.
-Fran

Scared of Storms

We've been having some interesting weather around here lately. Severe Thunderstorm Watches are practically a daily occurence and we hardly think anything of them. The Warnings, though, are more serious. And the only one in our household that really cares is me. Last night driving home from Agility Class there were numerous huge lightning flashes at a little distance. I jumped at each one. Hope said, "How pretty!" Yeah, sure. The dogs don't care. They don't like the rain but the light and sound shows don't bother them. I try to hide my anxiety, but sometimes I do a better job than others. I know it's irrational and I practice my yoga breathing, but I was still really glad to be home, in my cozy little house with all the lights on.

Wild Weather

Ceilidh and I didn't make it to Agility class last night. You might have heard about the severe storms in the Midwest? Well, yesterday was more severe than even we hardy Chicagoans were able to take in stride! There were two lines of storms that passed through the area yesterday. The first was about 3:30 in the afternoon (while I was out running errands) and the second all evening. There were some wind gusts up to about 80 mph with the first line, and we were under a tornado warning. And I think we had a couple of inches of rain with the second line of storms. I had thought that the second line would be gone by the time I would leave for class, but the storm was going in the same direction as I would be going. I tried, though! The streets were flooded on the way to the expressway, which is only a few blocks away. But there was very little traffic when I merged onto the Edens Expressway. I soon found out why! The expressway was flooded just past the next exit. Traffic was stopped at the exit. So, with the flooded expressway and the continual lightning over the city, where I was heading, I though it might be wiser to just take the providential exit next to where I was stopped and go home. So that you get the full experience, here are some photos (from the web site of a local TV station) of the storm and its aftermath.

This is the flooded expressway (different location) taken from an overpass.