That right folks...all in one day. Even a little bit of sunshine in the morning. What a day yesterday turned out to be. It was rainy most of the morning but it was actually nice because our yard needed some good moisture. Jon and I are sitting in my office eating lunch like usual, when we heard a familiar sound through the cracked window. We looked at each other and said, really? Tornado sirens? Great! We moved aways from Oklahoma so we wouldn't have to deal with tornadoes! So the hallway quickly turned to panic as we all opted to go downstairs to the basement. First report, Veedauwoo (10+ miles east of town & mountains). No big deal in my mind...that's way far away. Then the drama began...and did I mention that we are crammed in the basement that we endearingly call "the dungeon," because that's about how it feels, with four stories worth of co-workers? Not fun. People are panicked. There's never been a tornado actually touch down in town. Reports of an F-3 or F-4 tornado ripping through town, destroying Wal-mart, the Junior High and a gas station, and houses overturned rippled throughout the basement. Others chose to make light of the going on three hours of sitting in the basement by doing stupid human tricks, juggling, and eating. Since I was in the middle of my lunch when the fiasco began, I finished my lunch while Jon was ticked off that he was in our basement instead of his work basement. He wanted to get paid too for sitting around. There was one lady who appeared to be having an anxiety attack while another girl walked around giving exaggerated reports on what was going on. This was the same girl who swore it was an F-4 tornado, said that we were basically all in lock-down (the police were apparently outside of our building making people go back in), and who convinced another that she was having a heart attack and needed some aspirin. Drama much? Yeah...so it was quite the intense afternoon. Jon and I, along with another lady from my office really wanted to go up to the roof because we were pretty sure that this was stupid. Well actually Jon just wanted to go to work. So as soon as the warning was lifted, we all went back upstairs. I thought, darn it...now I have to work for another hour and a half? This stinks. Well come to find out, in the middle of the five second "warning lift," they shut down the university. Shut down UW! I have been at work when snow was fall was being measured in feet, and we are closing up shop for a measly tornado? Of coarse, I didn't complain for long, and was excited for the opportunity to get off work early. So Jon went by his work to see if they still needed him, could get a hold of anyone, so we went home. Our exciting early afternoon off was halted simply because of one, a new tornado warning, and two no electricity in our house. Bummer. So we went to the garage and pulled out our generator. It is for our camper, but Jon was just so excited to get to use it that we had to bring it to the house. We couldn't really plug much into it, so we just turned on the TV. After a boring half hour and after the final warning was lifted, we decided to go out and check out the damage, along with the rest of the town, might I add. So we went to a friends house who lives near the tornado site, and really I was just bummed out. There was so damage, but nothing like you would see in Oklahoma. There were tons of large, beautiful douglas firs that were uprooted. That was sad. And then of coarse the usual fences down and debris all over. Not too bad, but kind of weird for Laramie. Jon and I decided that this was at worst an F-2, but more than likely an F-1. Also, it looked more like wind damage than anything else. So, with half of the city with no electricity (including us), we decided to see if we could find a place to eat some dinner. We went to one of our favorite restaurants in town, and they were open! Yes! So we decided after the long day of dealing with dramatic Wyomingites, we could use a beer...they have this super tasty beer that tastes like bananas. As we were waiting for our table, there was unlimited chatter about no electricity here and damage there. Being from Oklahoma, we weren't real concerned (if you haven't gotten that from the blog thus far), so we were quite amused by it all. We sat, watched a little basketball, ate our dinner (which took forever and wasn't correct at all), and then got ready to leave. We looked outside, and it appears to be raining pretty hard. As we approached the door, we found that it was the one thing weather-wise that had not happened today. Snow. It was snowing cats and dogs out there. So Jon being the brave soul that he was, ran to the truck in his shorts, so that I wouldn't have to walk in the snow. What a guy! So we drove home, thoroughly ticked off that snow was falling on May 22nd, and that it would probably kill all the flowers that are starting to bloom, but what can you do. We ran into our neighbor as we were messing with the generator (still no electricity), and he said that he and his wife were going to her office to take a shower. They offered and I accepted. A shower, yes! Just what I need. So the three of us, Ryan, Ashley, and I drove to the north part of town, where they have electricity, to take a nice warm shower. We hung out while waiting on each other, and it turned out to be a delightful end to an otherwise weird day. We got home around 9:00pm and decided, what else is there to do in the dark, but go to sleep. I did my nightly routine...washed my face, brushed my teeth, filled the humidifier and went to bed. Wait a minute...filled the humidifier?? Doesn't that have to be plugged into electricity, which you still don't have, you might ask? Yes, yes it does. So the full humidifier sat on our floor, plugged in, with nothing to run it. Another bummer for no electricity. We set the alarm on our cell phones, blew out the candles and went to sleep. The end of a long day had come, and I couldn't wait to get up the next morning to see if the electricity was back, and it was!
