We were just south of Chattanooga when we stopped at a rest stop for a quick break. We had been watching dark clouds forming around us, and saw several thick, jagged lightning bolts in the distance.

It started to drizzle just as we were walking into the rest stop, and in a few minutes the drizzle had grown to a torrential downpour, with wind to match. The staff at the rest stop locked the door, and herded us all to a sheltered hallway, then pulled down and locked a metal gate – the kind you see in shopping malls before the stores open.

“If this gets worse, or the tornado siren goes off, we’ll put you all in a safe room,” one of the workers told us. It never came to that, and the storm let up before long. Still, there were plenty of tree branches on the road as we drove off.

About the same time, I got a text from my sister, wondering where we were in our journey. She was just leaving her house to visit her kids and grandkids in Iowa, and delayed her departure slightly due to a storm in the Chicago area, where she lives.

Fortunately, we all got to where we were going, in spite of the weather and 4^th of July holiday traffic, and we had a wonderful family visit. In addition to celebrating our grandson’s third birthday, we spent time at an indoor trampoline park, an outdoor playground, and the kitchen, where two of my three grandchildren helped me make chocolate chip brownies in a dinosaur-shaped cake pan, and then outlined the dinosaur’s features with a tube of chocolate frosting.

Since we live 1,200 miles away from them, we get to see our grandkids only a few times a year, and weather can still impact or derail those visits. The weather cooperated enough on this trip that we could enjoy our planned outdoor activities in addition to those spent indoors in the air-conditioning. However, we had to cancel our trip to see them last Christmas due to the perfect storm of snow, wind, and sub-zero temperatures. And four years before that, we had to cut a visit short and return home early due to a blizzard – in April!

Weather is wreaking havoc these days on many people, in many ways, from wildfires and floods to heat and hurricanes. A heartbreaking story from just a few days ago described a family who got swept away by floodwaters as they were on their way to a barbecue with friends and relatives. Some of them made it to safety, at least one did not, and as I write this, the search is on for two young children who are still missing.

The point of all this, I guess, is that safety should always come first. Much as we miss our children and grandchildren – even more so when planned visits have to be canceled or postponed, disappointing everyone involved – we all understand that, as an old commercial used to remind us, Mother Nature is no one to mess with. Respecting her, and all she is capable of, makes it much more likely that we’ll be around long enough to enjoy future visits – come hell or high water.

July 17, 2023
©Betty Liedtke, 2023

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