It was a dark and stormy night

                               
There was a huge storm all over the south last night. I managed to drive through it. Over and over.
The storm had come through over night Sunday into Monday, When I left yesterday I thought I had it in front of me and, that it would move out before I got to it.  Unfortunately, I managed to catch up to it last night and ended up travelling into driving rain and huge lightning strikes.

The radio kept issuing storm warnings including tornado watches, flood warnings, power outages and trees down in the road.  My car was buffeted by the wind and it was hard to keep the wheels from moving all over the road.

I was headed east along with the storm and knew that I was due to make a turn to the south within an hour of the 6:00 PM report last evening.  As I approached the intersection where I was due to start driving south, the storm had started to let up and I breathed a sigh of relief that I could leave the storm behind.  I turned south and drove for about thirty minutes when signs of the storm reared their heads again.  The rain increased along with huge streaks of lightning which lit up the entire sky.  New reports on the radio indicated that I had somehow managed to turn back into the storm.  New reports of tornado watches and flood warnings were being issued from the radio.  Crap! This storm was sticking to me like a three year old hanging on his mother's leg on the first day of pre-school.

I decided to stop and eat dinner hoping the storm would blow out by the time I was done.  A Shoney's appeared up ahead and I stopped to satisfy a craving I had been having for pancakes and bacon. Nothing like comfort food after a few hours of tense driving.

By the time dinner was done the storm had moved on and I gingerly stepped over puddles in the parking lot to get to my car.  Aha, I thought, now I can drive a few more hours to make it to the half-way point in my trip. I hopped in the car and proceeded to drive south again. About an hour into the drive, the rain started up once more along with the lightning.  Renewed radio reports now indicated that the storm had tracked south and I was going to drive right into it-again!  The wind picked up and the rain began to really come down hard.  I gave up and decided to call it a night with a plan to stop at the very next decent hotel to come along.

This morning's news reports showed the devastation caused by the storm and made me glad I had stopped. The sun is now shining and today's drive should be fine.