Storm Chasers

Greg and I recently bought some bikes so that we could tool around Athens in style--and so we could get some good exercise. When I get home from work in the evenings, my feet are seriously ready for a break; so a bike is the perfect alternative to running. Today we decided to go on a small storm chasing bike adventure. We could hear thunder so we checked the weather radar online and saw that the storm was northeast of us. So we decided to go take a look.


Here's the storm blowing in.

And here is a neat picture of the sun shining through the clouds to our west.

But then the storm started getting a little too close for comfort--and we saw some big flashes of lightning. So that was our signal to head home. The storm ended up skirting around Athens, but we're glad we didn't take any chances.

Happy Birthday to Sarah today! It sounds like she, Joel, and Eliza had a fun little trip to the Ninety Six National Historic Site there in South Carolina. That sounds like a really cool Revolutionary War site--hooray for National Parks!

The Potentially Crazy Dog Lady

Yesterday our neighbor, the Mayor, got a new dog. The new dog looks JUST LIKE Big Spike!!! So you can bet that the next time a tornado rolls through and we are running out to the car with our animal children, the crazy cat lady will become the crazy dog lady and will run over and accuse us of stealing their dog. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Speaking of animals, there are two ADORABLE baby bunnies that were born in the Lincoln neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. They have made their new home behind the Beedle House, which is our ranger headquarters, and it is fun to see them hopping around. I've been sneaking them some carrots from my lunch.

Yesterday evening was my first time closing the park! Luckily everything went well. Ranger David (one of our Law Enforcement rangers) went around to the different buildings with me, which was a great help (and made me feel much safer). There is a lot to remember when closing down each building, and probably the scariest part of it is having complete responsibility for a true national treasure.

I am enjoying my day off--especially sleeping in and not having to see 8th graders. Next week is going to be a wild one at work. The park is hosting an Organization of American Historians interpretation training workshop that will involve people from historic sites all over the country (mostly from Illinois though). I have been working like crazy to get everyone registered (while still taking loads of school kids through the Lincoln Home), and I still have to get 125 packets ready for the conference attendees. We have some pretty big-name historians that will be speaking at the conference, so it should be pretty cool. The conference takes place on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday and Thursday I am responsible for conducting the "Ranger Exchange" tours. The Lincoln Home has a partnership with the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home National Memorial in Indiana and the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in Kentucky where each park sends rangers to the other parks to tour the area and learn about park operations. So we have five rangers coming from the other parks this next week. They will attend the conference, and then for the next two days I will be responsible for showing them around the area. It should be pretty exciting!

The Mayor and the Crazy Cat Lady

Today is the first day that I will be responsible for closing up at the Lincoln Home, so I don't have to go to work until 11:00. It's nice to have a little break in the morning, but I won't get to leave work until 7:30 p.m. Over the weekend, we transitioned to our "extended hours" schedule which will last until Labor Day. The park will be open from 8:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., and since I am one of only six people who have keys to all of the buildings, I will be responsible for closing one night each week. Considering the presence of all the psycho people who wander the streets of Springfield, I was a little nervous to think that I might be the only person there until 7:30. But I found out yesterday that one of the law enforcement rangers will be there with me--so that is good.

But anyway, after the excitement of the tornado a couple of weeks ago, I failed to write about one other item of interest: our crazy cat lady neighbor. Remember a couple of months ago when I wrote about our neighbor who ran for mayor of Athens and only received six votes (when the winner and runner-up both received over 200 votes)? Well, Greg and I now jokingly refer to said neighbor (just between ourselves) as "the Mayor." The crazy cat lady is the Mayor's wife. They are quite the neighbors. Their house is totally scary, and their kids are really rude. The Mayor and the crazy cat lady are always outside yelling at their kids, and the Athens Police show up at their home quite frequently.

So it was the day of the tornado, and Greg and I having just seen on the Weather Channel that we were under a tornado warning, packed up the animal children and ran out to the car (we were going to head over to the safety of the funeral home basement). I had just gotten into the car with the children when the Mayor's wife came storming over into our yard. (She definitely seemed intoxicated.) She walked up to Greg and screamed, "You guys stole our cat!!!!" That caught us both off guard. He said, "No, we have our own cat." She shrieked: "No you don't! You stole Bob our cat!! I demand to see the cat in your car!" Greg was trying to get her to leave so that we could leave, but she was acting really crazy. So he took Lily out of the car and said, "Look--is this your cat?" She said, "No, that's not Bob." But then she was still freaking out, and her kids came over and were acting really ridiculous, and Greg told them that they really needed to leave us alone. So we got in the car and drove to the funeral home. As if the tornado wasn't already enough to worry about!

Later that day Greg was able to talk to one of the police officers and tell them about the incident. The police lady asked who it was, and when Greg told her she just rolled her eyes and said, "Well, that doesn't surprise me." She told us that we can call the police anytime the Mayor and his crazy cat lady wife bother us.

Speaking of tornadoes, I took this picture from our car when we were driving home the other day after taking Mom to the airport in St. Louis. We were just south of Litchfield, Illinois, and there were some serious thunderstorms blowing in. I was sure that this was a tornado forming, but it ended up being what they call a "teaser." It's just rain that looks like it's turning into a tornado. On Tuesday while I was at work, something kind of funny happened. The church right next to our bus parking lot has a food pantry. A number of us rangers were sitting out by the bus lot waiting for the school kids to arrive, and we were watching some of the happenings over at the food pantry. A red convertible Camero pulled up, and the couple inside who looked like they had come into some hard times, got out and started loading food items into their trunk. There was definitely something wrong with that picture--a red Camero? Maybe if you drive a Camero you don't have enough money to buy things like food? It was kind of strange. In fact, the whole Springfield area (including Athens) is kind of strange and funny.

Best Times Ever!

I just had the best few days ever! Before I get into this week's adventures, I must make an addendum to my previous post "Twister." It turns out that the tornado that went through Athens wasn't technically a tornado because there were no reported touchdowns and no significant damage. But I tell you what: it was tornado enough for me! I haven't written on my blog for a while because we have been too busy having fun here for the last few days. On Wednesday, Mom flew into St. Louis, and Greg went and picked her up while I was at work. It was so wonderful to see you, Mom! When Greg and Mom first arrived back at the house, Greg gave her some treats to give to the animal children when she first met them. The animals ended up loving her! They are all quite sad this evening because they miss their new friend. That evening we introduced Mom to the horseshoe sandwich--Springfield's most famous food item. We ate at the Boar's Nest here in Athens which was very fun. We also especially enjoyed our appetizer of fried pickles. On Thursday morning Mom went to work with me and hung out at the Lincoln Home for the morning. I even got to take her on a tour!

I took the afternoon off on Thursday so that Mom and I could go have some adventures. We met up with our friend Dr. Rugh from BYU who was also here for the Mormon History Association conference. We had a delicious lunch at one of my favorite lunch spots: The Feed Store. Then we did some fun sightseeing at Lincoln's Tomb and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. One of my favorite parts of the afternoon was when Mom, Dr. Rugh and I stopped for ice cream at a little shop downtown. We sat outside on a bench and enjoyed the beautiful afternoon weather. We then went back to Dr. Rugh's hotel and had a delicious sampling of appetizers at the restaurant. That evening we went to the MHA opening reception held at my old stomping grounds: the Old State Capitol building. What a fun day!

Friday was the big day of my presentation. The MHA conference was held at the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center downtown. Mom and I went to a few sessions earlier in the day--but they were all kind of boring :-) We thought one of them was especially boring, and then the speaker from that one ended up sitting by us at the luncheon we attended! He was a little more interesting to talk to than he was to listen to. My presentation that afternoon went really well. I was happy to have Mom, Greg and Dr. Rugh there as well as some friends from Athens--and then some other people I didn't know. One of the people in the audience tried to show how much he knew about architecture by contradicting a lot of the things I said. Instead of appearing smart however, he just came off as super annoying. After the presentation we had a fun cookout at our friend Janet's house. Janet and Larry live just down the street from us, and Janet is our other friend Alice's sister. There was quite a crowd there: Mom, Greg, me, Janet, Larry, Karla, Alice and Don, and their friends Barb and Dennis. We had some divine steaks! After dinner we had a fun time going up to New Salem and attending the play "Little Women" at the amphitheater there. It was a very nice evening.

On Saturday morning we went back to the MHA conference to hear our friend Susan Easton Black make a presentation about a man named James Adams. Back when I worked with Sister Black at BYU, I helped her compile some info. on James Adams who was friends with Joseph Smith and enemies with Abraham Lincoln. He was a very interesting man, and we enjoyed Sister Black's presentation. It was especially fun to see her and Harvey! Next we met my friend Linda at the Dana-Thomas House (a Frank Lloyd Wright house) run by IHPA. The Dana-Thomas House was closed for a few months thanks to the former governor, but Governor Quinn opened it back up a few weeks ago. Linda even took us on a private, behind-the-scenes tour! It was so much fun. After the tour, Mom, Greg and I got some delicious Jimmy John's sandwiches and went to see the new "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" movie. It was hilarious! It had so many funny parts, and Abraham Lincoln was even one of the characters. We then introduced Mom to the divine Midnight Truffle Blizzard at Dairy Queen and then went back to the MHA conference for a little while to learn about Nauvoo during the Civil War.

That evening we had SO MUCH FUN roasting hot dogs in our fire pit! The fire pit worked splendidly, and the hot dogs and s'mores turned out wonderfully. We also had a pretty intense game of Quiddler--our new favorite card game.

On Sunday morning Mom and I attended the concluding MHA event: a devotional at the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield. The church is not the original building where the Lincolns attended meetings, but it is the same congregation of which Mary Lincoln was a member; and they have the original Lincoln pew at the building. It is the actual building where Mary Lincoln's funeral was held, so it is a very neat place. The devotional was really cool and included music that Abraham Lincoln and Joseph Smith loved. Hearing the songs played on the huge pipe organ there was very neat. We then went and picked up Greg then headed to New Salem where we enjoyed a nice walk through the beautiful historic village there. We then went to church, which I especially enjoyed since I haven't been able to go for a few weeks!

This morning Greg took this fun Memorial Day picture of Mom and me in front of our house with our 34-star Civil War-era-pattern flag. We had perfect weather all week until today when we had quite a bit of rain.

It was sad to have to take Mom to St. Louis to head home, but we still had fun along the way. We stopped in one of Mom's and my most favorite places: St. Charles, Missouri--just outside of St. Louis. St. Charles' historic district is so much fun! I took a picture of Greg and Mom--his mother-in-law--in front of this fun place called the Mother-in-Law Restaurant where Mom and I had lunch one time :-) Today we had a delicious lunch at a fun garden cafe, and the rain almost held off until the end of our meal. It rained quite hard for a little while, so we snuck into some of the shops. When the rain let up we were able to enjoy walking down Main Street. Then it was off to the airport. We were sad to see Mom leave, but we're very glad that she made it home safely. Unfortunately it's back to the grindstone tomorrow at the Lincoln Home, but it has been wonderful to have such a fun break with Mom here. Thank you for the most fun ever, Mom!

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.