A Birthday, The Zoo, A Tornado, and other Adventures...

After our time in Nauvoo, we got the kids ready for bed and hopped in the car for a few more hours. (word to the wise, when driving with kids for many, many hours, drive as much as possible while they are asleep!) We spent the night in some state...can't really remember which one anymore. The next morning was my bday, and Andrew was really sweet to take all the kids when they woke up (with the sun) to let me sleep in. I woke up to three cute kids bringing me breakfast in bed (courtesy of the continental breakfast at the hotel we were staying at).



Then we all loaded up for a few more hours of driving. Around lunchtime, we were needing a break, and as if someone could read my mind, I glanced to the side of the freeway and saw a huge sign for the "Omaha, Nebraska Zoo". "Why not stop?" we thought. And so we did.
We had so much fun! I was really quite impressed with this zoo. We have been to several zoos, aquariums, and exhibits over the years, but this place really combined the best of them all!

We took a train ride around the zoo, went to the butterfly exhibit, saw the aquarium complete with puffins and sharks (which you saw while walking through a huge, underwater tunnel), and went inside a massive dome that was created to look like the desert (with wolves, bats, and even an underground cave). We even saw an adorable baby giraffe who was running around chasing birds. I have never seen a giraffe run before, it was really cute.









Seriously, this place was impressive. Who would have guessed? And to top it all off, when leaving the zoo we stopped by a run down looking place that boasted the best cheeseburgers in town. Well, we decided to test out their claim, and not only were their cheeseburgers amazing, so were their fries AND their ice cream .





We were all pretty exhausted by the time we hit the road again, quite a bit later than we had planned (it was hard to leave that zoo...we already had to skip a bunch of exhibits as it was!). We thought the kids would fall asleep quickly and that hopefully Andrew and I would stay wide awake for several hours while we tried to reach Wyoming. It was only an hour or two later that our next adventure began.



Andrew pulled off into a rest stop area so we could take a bathroom break before everyone fell asleep. It had been threatening rain all day, but we hadn't really seen much of anything yet. By the time we stopped at the rest stop, there was some wind and a few raindrops, but no more than that. Thanks to our wonderful Ipod, we hadn't listened to the radio for any of the drive, so we were taken by surprise when Andrew went inside the bathroom with the boys and was told by several kind people that there was a tornado warning in effect...right now...for the area we were currently in. In fact, the tornado was headed straight for us and had already touched down a few cities away. Hmmm....



That's when our adventurous day took a different turn. By the time everyone had gone to the bathroom, the weather had already changed severely. The wind was whipping around us and the rain was starting to pour. We sat in the car, debating. If we stayed where we were, we did have shelter, but we were also sitting directly in the tornado's expected path. The phrase 'sitting ducks' comes to mind. If we kept driving in the direction we needed to go, we would be meeting the tornado head on. (the word 'crazy' comes to mind!) Or we could go in a completely opposite direction and try to outrun, or run away from, the tornado. And of course, all this guessing was based on the assumptions that unknown weathermen were making about what the tornado would do next...tornadoes have the right to change their mind, and it's been known to happen before. Anyway, it was a bit of a tricky situation to be in.

After a while of debating, changing our minds, and of course a lot of praying, we decided to stay where we were. The kids were all in their pajamas, ready for bed, and Robby had actually already fallen asleep by this time. We gathered blankets, and went inside the rest stop, along with several other people. It was an interesting assortment of people-and pets!-but I was impressed with how kind everyone was. Nothing like a tornado headed your way to bring people together. Most of the people there were locals, and for them, this was something they had all done before. "Oh yeah, May is the worst time for tornadoes in this area!" Oh, really? We didn't know that!
Andrew found that in between the men's bathroom and the women's bathroom was a smaller handicapped bathroom without windows. So as the expected time for the tornado's arrival drew closer, and as the skies became visibly black, with the wind and rain pounding at the windows around us, we took our blankets and our kids into the handicapped bathroom, along with the other family who had young kids with them. It was nice and cozy in there, one poor lady had to sit on the toilet holding her baby, but we felt grateful that we had this option in case the tornado did decide to touch down.



After about ten minutes, someone peeked their head in and told us that they were pretty sure the tornado had passed. We went out of the bathroom, and sure enough, the skies were already a light blue, with the blackness moving away from us. We waited for a little longer, and then headed out to our car to load up the kids. Robby slept through the entire thing. I don't think we realized quite how close we had come until we had driven about 4 minutes down the interstate and saw a huge motor home turned over on the side of the road, another car in the ditch, and a tractor trailer that was also flipped over on its side. About a half a mile further down the road, police cars were blocking off the freeway because of how many other cars and trucks were down. The detour they sent us on showed us several trees on the ground and more cars that were stranded. We found out that the tornado had touched down just a few miles from where we were. We were definitely counting our blessings.

We didn't make it as far as we had planned that night, but we couldn't have been more grateful to be where we were. It was quite the day to remember!