Torrid Tornadoes Tear Through Tiny Town

This past weekend was a wildy and wooly one, weather-wise. (Avidly admire all the asenine alliteration!)

OK, I'll stop.

Really, the weather was quite crappy. I take back what I said concerning the lack of rain. Aaron and I woke up Sunday morning to the sound of severe weather sirens, and assuming that Kansans probably don't fool around too much with the severe weather warnings, we bolted downstairs and hid in the pantry. With one pissed off cat.

Let me describe our pantry. It may be the safest "room" in our basement-less house during a tornado, but one thing it is NOT is large. There is barely enough room for one person, let alone two people and a small, claustrophobic, furry mammal. There's certainly not enough room for two people to sit, so one of us had to stand or squat the whole time. And Milo just tried to claw his way out.

Well, we didn't hear any "freight train" noises, and eventually we came out of our very small pantry. The power was out, but nothing really awful had seemed to have happened. So, Aaron's hungry stomach decided for us that we would drive around Lawrence and see if we could find a restaurant with power and breakfast. Neither seemed to exist, as it turned out.

All the traffic lights were out, and traffic was behaving about as well as could be expected. There were trees where they weren't supposed to be (in cars), powerlines down, transformers in the street - things were a real mess. And we couldn't get any breakfast.

Well, we went to the HyVee (grocery) down the street from our townhome, and went home to eat some bagels and cream cheese. The power came back on soon after, and everything was hunky-dory. Unfortunately, parts of Lawrence didn't fare so well. Classes were cancelled at KU on Monday because of the mess on campus - 60% of the buildings sustained damage! Ouch! We went to church at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday evening, and power was still out downtown. Plus, a number of the downtown streets were really a huge mess - there were old growth trees lying broken everywhere.

So, that was our first Lawrence, KS severe weather experience. Hopefully the whole springtime isn't quite that crazy.

"...And I start to complain that there's no rain..."

Saturday was one of two rainy days that I can remember since arriving in Kansas in late December. It simply doesn't rain here. Despite the much-needed rain, we had a fairly eventful day. Aaron got up at the crack of dawn and drove to KC to see if he could get some free doors. I know, it sounds weird. Burns & Mac was doing some remodelling and told their employees that there were going to be 40 solid-core doors free for the taking at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. (We thought they would make excellent desks and/or workbenches.) Aaron drove out to KC in the rain, got to the loading dock at 7:30 a.m. ...and they had already all been taken. That was a little disappointing... no cool desks and/or workbenches for us.

Later that afternoon we drove back out to KC, this time to go to the La-Z-Boy furniture store. I was excited; Aaron was less excited. Nonetheless, we picked out a beautiful couch and a lovely green upholstery for it. We will get a gorgeous green couch with cream accent pillows sometime in May. Ugh. Two months away from now!!! We ate a late lunch at Popeyes (mmm... fried chicken) and then moseyed beck towards Lawrence, taking the long way home on Route 56.

Sunday was supposed to be rainy, but true to past experience, the day dawned clear and sunny. Aaron packed us a lunch, and we hit the road. We drove west from Lawrence, towards the Flint Hills of north-eastern Kansas. It was a gorgeous day - sunny and warm. We drove with the windows down for a good part of it, and everything still smelled reminiscent of Saturday's rain. It made me think that spring was almost here for good.

I don't know that we actually ever technically got into the Flint Hills region. We certainly had it surrounded. Wherever we actually were, it was quite pretty. It was very open, very big, and gently rolled along. We pulled off a main highway and ate lunch by a ranch fence. We ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and listened to the cars not going by. It was so quiet... There was a bird in a nearby tree making the only audible noise other than the wind in the tallgrass.

I find it hard to imagine what the first pioneers felt when they started settling in Kansas, moving here from places like Virginia, New York, and Pennysylvania. It's so wide-open and unsheltered. I supposed it would have been quite scary to see the horizon in 360 degrees, and not see another house.

Lately...

Everything has been going pretty well here. Aaron started work this week at Burns and MacDonnell, a very large engineering firm based out of Kansas City. Everything seems pretty good on that front, except for the hour-long commute each way. Hopefully that will change to a reasonable amount of time sometime in the not-unforseeable-future when we buy a house.

Lent has begun, and today is a Friday. I didn't pack a lunch this morning, so it's either popcorn, brown rice (by itself), or a walk to the Burge Union for me. I vote for Burge Union.

I'm glad that Lent is here, which I suppose is a little weird. Lent really shouldn't be something to look forward to. However, it means that spring is ALMOST here, and I really can't wait for spring. Even though this winter has been mild, it's still been winter. I can't wait for warm breezes and windflowers everywhere. And bike rides! I really can't wait to get a road bike!!!