Twister!

WOW--today was the scariest day EVER!!!! The other day I took an online quiz called "What is your greatest fear?" The result was storms. The quiz analysis was very accurate. It said: "You watch the Weather Channel daily. You have an admiration for Benjamin Franklin, as lightning makes you shudder with fear. You consider the movie Twister a horror flick." That is all very true, and today I found out exactly why I am so afraid of storms--because they are freaking scary! This afternoon I experienced my first real TORNADO, and it was not pleasant. There were a couple of tornado warnings when I lived in Natchez, and I did hear the tornado sirens go off there once, but those storms ended up skirting around Natchez. So this was the first time that I truly experienced a tornado. These are some pictures that Greg took at the beginning and ending of the storm. Greg is much braver than I, and he is an experienced tornado survivor, so it didn't bother him as much as it bothered me. We even had some golf ball sized hail here! It was terrible.

At about 4:30 this afternoon we were in Petersburg with the dogs at the vet. On our way home we heard that there were tornado warnings in the counties just west of us, and so as soon as we walked in the door, I checked weather.com. It said that we were under a tornado warning! A tornado warning means that a tornado has been sighted in your area. We could hear some thunder, but it wasn't raining or anything--but we decided that we should still pack up the animal children and head over to the funeral home which has a nice, sturdy brick basement. Thankfully we did, because within a few minutes of arriving at the funeral home, the tornado sirens started going off. Tornado sirens mean that there is officially a tornado somewhere nearby. That has to be the worst sound ever! We ran down to the basement, and by this point I was pretty much freaking out. The sirens stopped after a few minutes, and we went back upstairs to check things out. It turns out that the first round of sirens was just kind of a warning--to get people into their basements--because the real storm arrived about ten minutes later. Greg was outside taking pictures and checking out the sky when he saw what appeared to be a funnel cloud forming. I was already in the basement with the animal children, and he quickly joined us. I thought for sure the funeral home was going to blow away. I didn't hear the typical "train sound" that tornadoes make because the hail hitting the building, combined with the thunder, was too loud. I called my friend Linda who lives just south of Springfield, and she said that the weather was clear down there. I told her that we were having a tornado, and she got online to monitor the weather radar. She assured me that we would be okay and told us when it looked like the storm had passed Athens. It was about that time that the sirens stopped, and we went back upstairs. I think that was pretty much the worst experience I've ever had!

Fortunately Athens didn't receive any serious damage that we could see. We were a little worried that we would come home to find my car covered with hail welts, but Stryder seemed to weather the storm just fine. Our tornado continued on clear to Champaign! So it must have been a pretty strong storm. The tornado was followed by some other heavy thunderstorms, which are supposed to continue through the evening, but those storms don't seem so bad after what we had this afternoon. Oy vey, what a day! I often have tornado nightmares anyway, so I can't imagine what kind of dreams I'll have tonight. We're just glad that everything turned out all right.

I Love Mom!

I missed posting a Mother's Day message on Mother's Day, but I wanted to say that I am lucky to have the BEST MOM in the whole world!!! Mom and I have so many good times together. I've almost lost track of how many times we've driven across the country together. Thank you for all of the fun adventures, Mom! I am especially excited for Mom's visit one week from tomorrow! It will be so wonderful to have her here. I am also very lucky to have the most wonderful grandmas! And, both of my sisters are wonderful moms as well!

It has been a busy week back at work. The school kids just keep on coming--they never stop, and they even seem to multiply in numbers. I'm always happy when I get to lead a regular public tour instead of a school group tour. The big difference is that people on the public tour want to be there, while the school kids have to be there. There have been some cute little kids on the public tours lately. The other day when I was in Abraham Lincoln's bedroom with one group, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be a binky which one of the babies had thrown onto Mr. Lincoln's bed :-) It was really funny. Then later that same day I found a mysterious blue plastic hippo on the floor in the Lincolns' bedroom. The babies must get pretty bored by that point of the tour.

We have started something new at the park called "Lot Talks." Every hour during the day, one of the rangers is stationed at a house or vacant lot in the neighborhood, and we do a special presentation about the Lincolns' neighbors. I was skeptical when they first proposed the idea, but it has turned out to be a lot of fun, and the visitors seem to really enjoy it. Speaking of the neighborhood, the cell phone tour is progressing splendidly! I finished the script, it has been approved, and now the Presidential Museum is going to help us get it recorded. They are also going to produce the signs that will be placed along the street at the different tour stops. I am very excited to see the completed product--hopefully sometime in June.

Yesterday my friend Angie from school came to the Lincoln Home! She and her family were in town for our EIU graduation on Saturday, so while they were in the state they came up to Springfield. It was great to see her, and I am very sad that I wasn't able to go to graduation. There was just no way Greg and I could have made it. We're both feeling a little bit better now, but we really needed some rest over the weekend. We actually still need more rest, but that is hard to come by during the week. Tomorrow we're supposed to have really bad, scary weather here. I think it would be kind of exciting if the tornado sirens went off while I was at work, but actually not really. It's never a good sign when the hours from 3:00 p.m. until midnight are all outlined in red on weather.com. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens tomorrow.

The Sick Bowles

THIS is why I am not too heartbroken about missing Girl Scout Day at the Lincoln Home on Wednesday--thousands of Girl Scouts roaming the streets. It sounds like it was a pretty crazy day. I returned to work yesterday--not because I felt like it--but because I knew that there was much to be done. My voice still wasn't good enough to give tours, so I worked on entering the registration information for the upcoming interpretation workshop on June 2. Some Lincoln scholars will be coming to Springfield for a seminar that will include people from museums and historic sites all over the state. It might be the cold medicine I'm taking, but I keep having these strange dreams at night about Lincoln impersonators gone bad.

My voice is coming back a bit, but the sickness has turned into a terrible cold. I feel awful, but the worst part is that now Greg is getting sick too :-( We are quite a pair. We were really looking forward to going to Charleston this weekend for my EIU graduation, but there's just no way we could make it. I was going to go down there today to pick up my cap and gown, then I was going to get to stay with the cute Stowell family! Then Greg was going to drive down tomorrow (he has some funeral home responsibilities this weekend), but we decided that it would be better not to share our germs with everyone. And, I know I need to rest up for the coming week--because come Sunday, it's back to giving tours again. I'm sad that we won't get to see the Stowells, but now we have an excuse to go down to Charleston another time.

Congratulations to Sarah and Joel on finishing their busy semester! I'm so glad that we got to go see them earlier this year. And we are really looking forward to Mom's visit at the end of this month for the Mormon History Association conference!!! That will be so much fun.

Benched

A park ranger without a voice is kind of like a baseball catcher with no arms and no legs--it doesn't work. So, much like my favorite MLB catcher Yadier Molina would be if he came to work with no arms and no legs, I am currently benched. Yesterday I went to work, but I had zero speaking capabilities, so they had me work on some of the Public Program Coordinator duties like e-mailing Teddy Roosevelt. I finished all of my pressing duties, so I left work a little early to go home and try to get my voice back. I have literally tried everything: cough drops, humidifiers, Vicks, Listerine, steam, lemon tea and honey, and of course rest; but nothing seems to be working. This morning when I woke up, I still had no voice, and now I had a terrible sore throat and stuffy head. I realized that I would be of no use at work, so I called in sick and Greg took me to the doctor. The doctor says that I might have strep throat, but it's probably just a cold and strained vocal cords or maybe laryngitis. She gave me some antibiotics and sent us on our way. She also said that I must stay home from work tomorrow and rest my voice some more. You know what that means: I won't be there for Girl Scout Day when 2,400 Girl Scouts descend on the park. I am terribly disappointed about this (just kidding, I'm being sarcastic). I feel bad because I know that they need my help tomorrow, but if I can't yell at the Girl Scouts, there would be no point in having me there anyway. So I'll be benched for one more day, but hopefully I can go back to work on Thursday. Greg has been taking good care of me, and the animal children have been extra cuddly, so I'm sure I'll be back on my feet very soon.

The Hoarse Flu

Instead of the Swine Flu, I think I have the HOARSE flu! :-) I lost my voice at work today :-( Unfortunately being a ranger does not work when you don't have a voice. I started out giving tours this morning, but by the afternoon I didn't sound very good. My voice isn't terribly loud normally, but it's even worse when I don't have a voice at all. I've been drinking soothing things this evening, but still no voice. Hopefully a good night's sleep will do the trick.

Speaking of the Swine Flu (or H1N1), hopefully none of the rangers get it after our school bus from Chicago this morning. Chicago is the only part of the state that has confirmed cases of H1N1, and when a load of 8th graders from Chicago arrived today (it's unusual to have bus groups on Sundays), the first thing they said was, "Some of us are really sick and have been throwing up all night." Oh great, thanks. Maybe we should have some of those cool blue face masks.

Anyway, yesterday was a very fun day at the Lincoln Home. It was my day off, but I needed to go to work for living history volunteer training. There was a lot of excitement going on at the park with the 114th Illinois Volunteer Regiment reenactors doing an encampment next to the Lincoln Home. It was really cool! They fired muskets and walked around the park chatting with visitors. And my favorite ranger, Kaiser, was there too! Isn't he cute with his little ranger badge? He is so sweet (unless you're a bad guy). Then when I got home yesterday, all of the animal children were more than happy to sit on my lap. They actually don't really care about being with me--they just like the heater that I usually have pointed at my legs. And they like my fleece blanket. But isn't that a funny picture of all the children? Well, I'm off to bed and will hopefully wake up with a voice.