Weather and Ralph update

What a day of weather we had yesterday.

Well, more accurately, what a day of weather we had all around us yesterday. Here where we live we had some wind and about five minutes of rain and that was it.

But north and south of us, and east and west of us, tornadoes, hail and high winds caused extensive damage.

Wife and I, in some ways, were right in the middle of it -- figuratively speaking.

Daughter has a wedding she is attending in Montgomery, AL today. She was scheduled to leave yesterday and had arranged to get off work a few hours early.

She got home about 1:30.  We had already had one round of storms yesterday morning and more were on the way. We had had the Weather Channel on a good part of the day.

After looking at the Weather Channel and the weather radar online, Wife said she thought there was a clear shot south for the time being and Daughter should go ahead and leave. She was meeting a friend about an hour and a half down the Interstate from here and they were going to Birmingham for the night.

In hindsight, her leaving was not a good decision. She was gone scarcely an hour before she called us and her friend had called her and told her she should probably pull over. She found an exit where there was a small hotel and the manager let her come in and wait out the latest storm.

Even though things looked good -- or we thought they did -- when she left, these "super cell" things were spawning tornadoes all around the area into which she was driving.

We kept in close contact with her. She got the "all clear" and left the little hotel where she had taken shelter, then met up with her friend. There was another round of storms and the two of them went in yet another hotel (thank you to the hotel managers of both facilities) where they waited out this round. 

Wife and I were watching it all play out on TV and were kicking ourselves for letting her go. Now granted, she is 23 years old and I can't exactly tell her what to do, but I should have looked at the situation more closely and told her emphatically that she should wait until the morning (today) to leave.

Fortunately, they made it to Birmingham last night and all was and is well, but Wife and I were quite uneasy.

In addition, Younger Son was planning to come home from Auburn for the weekend and would have been driving right through it.

I can still tell him what to do and I told him to stay put. He was not happy with my decision. I told him it could quite literally endanger his life and as much as I wanted to see him, I could not in good conscience allow or advise him to start driving north in that kind of weather.

"Wait and come home early tomorrow morning," I told him.

"No, if I'm not coming home tonight, I'm not coming at all," he said.

He got home a few minutes ago. 

Today it's beautiful and cool here in Middle Tennessee. We dodged a bullet but, as I said, areas around us did not fare as well. I have come to greatly respect storms/tornadoes. Wife and I were prepared to go to the basement yesterday but never had to make the trip down there.

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We have decided to let Ralph the Dog live out his life.  We could have opted for surgery which might not have even achieved the desired result if the cancer had spread.  If he were 5 or 6, it would be different. At 14 or 15, I'm not putting him through it.

The surgeon said we'll know when the time comes to "help him along."  For now, he's right here with us, doing fine and being treated, quite appropriately, as royalty.