My friend, Janet, and I had decided in April that we would enter the "Bloom" show at Raw 1899 Wine Bar in San Angelo, Texas. It turned out to be quite the adventure.
First of all it was on a day that was forecasting severe weather in our hometown of Abilene.
Other friends and our husbands were questioning our wisdom in venturing out in stormy weather. We were not deterred. We have both survived cancer and we feel like we can conquer anything. Things started out ok. There was a Tornado Watch for Abilene but, we were leaving Abilene and it looked like there were clear skies in San Angelo.
Driving South down the highway we could see the ominous clouds off to the West of us.
Then, I got a text ( in our siblings group text) from my brother, Jason, warning us all about all the tornado warnings.
There was a tornado on the ground West of us and we were in it's path. I texted back with our location on the radar and he advised that we take shelter immediately. I responded that we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no place to take shelter. Jason is a preacher. He said he was going to pray for us and he had his kids and grandkids praying too. A few minutes later he exclaimed that the tornado had changed direction.
By that time, we were coming into Miles, Texas. There was a tornado on the ground headed toward Miles. There were also reports of baseball sized hail and we were more concerned that her Lexus would get hail damage! We looked for a place to pull over to protect her car. If we saw a tornado coming we would just figure what direction it was going and we'd be able to avoid it. She was driving and I was watching the radar. We pulled over to a station awning that was closed and then saw that there was a station that was open not too far from us. We drove to that station and went inside. We were invited to sit at a table and chairs they had set up and we heard them talking about where we would go if the tornado reached us. My sister, Judy, called and told us that we should go ahead and head for San Angelo because it was clear and we could beat the storm. We headed out. Then sister, Sue, called and offered her newly built home for us to stay the night. I told her we might take her up on it but we were going to see if the Raw 1899 Bar was still open to receive art. They were not answering our calls ( they were extremely busy!) I told Sue we were going go by and see if they were open. They were. We parked and as we were getting out Janet spilled her nearly full Diet Coke in my lap! That was ok though because I was already soaked with the rain.
The owners of the bar welcomed us with open arms. We had entered their very first show when they opened years ago. We were happy to see them and the feeling was mutual. We settled in with Wine and Brie. Yum! I actually had a margarita.
We decided to find a hotel and go to Walmart to get dry clothes for me. We didn't think it was wise to drive back to Abilene through the still stormy weather in the dark.
As we were driving to our hotel, I got a message from Sue. There was a tornado on the ground where her new home was and she sent me a photo of the baseball sized hail. We dodged another bullet there!
In case you're wondering if this one of those stories that ends with just kidding.....nope. The bright side is I got to drive the Lexus back to Abilene with the top down. Cool that!
A week later I went back to the reception and awards ceremony. I won the Rene Peckham Award!
