Okay, so we all have our ‘bucket list’ items to go through during our lifetime. I have mine and four of my items are natural items. I have been through two now.
The first was the Father’s Day tornado in Billings on June 20, 2010. The was an EF2 that touched down at the fairgrounds and destroyed the MetraPark Arena. I lived literally three blocks away from there. It was impressive being almost underneath the storm. The sound was extremely loud; like a thousand train locomotives times a thousand. The air was supercharged and you could feel it. Then the howl started as the funnel came down and made contact. Was I down in the basement of the house where I should have been? Nope. I was outside taking pictures, alongside most of my neighbors. Now that it is past, it brings to mind the phrase, ‘Hold my beer and watch this!’ I didn’t feel like I was in much danger as the funnel was staying put as it tore the Metra to shreds. But then the upper part of the funnel looped over the entire neighborhood in a matter of seconds. Ok, it was time to go down to the basement. Checked off.
Of course, the second item was our earthquake last night at 12:30. I have actually been in several earthquakes but have either slept right through them or been in a moving vehicle and didn’t get to experience them. I was sound asleep when this one hit, but it woke me up big time. It felt as though someone was trying to shove my bed across the room, continually hitting it with the entire force of their body. It took a second to realize what was going on. What was even cooler was that a storm was rolling through with a ton of lightning popping and thunder rolling. My dog Ranger was not impressed in the least. Facebook lit up like a fireworks show from Canada to Wyoming to Idaho to far eastern Montana with friends who had felt it. It ended up being a fairly substantial quake at magnitude 5.8 and located just northwest of Helena. Several aftershocks had some ooomph to them, as well. Checked off.
My other two items? The upcoming solar eclipse in August. I will head to Idaho to experience the totality of that. And the other is to enjoy a hurricane party somewhere and then batten down the hatches to experience the storm. Yeah, I’m kinda silly like that.
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