Wednesday, 25 Jan 2012, Livingston, TX

We are still in our hotel room in Livingston as the tornado and thunderstorm warning are covering the entire area we would be travelling in today. There are certainly worse things that lounging around, watching television, and snoozing off and on the entire day.

As soon as we woke up this morning, we could tell the weather had some power to it as the wind was really blowing and it was quite warm...which we've learned isn't good, at this time of year, in this location. As soon as we turned on the television, we could see that areas to the west of us were already in the 'tornado watch' area and it was moving our way. Given the incredible number of 18-wheelers on the road, driving in the wind and torrential rain just didn't seem to be a wise choice so we extended our stay one day. Tonight the news is full of damage that occurred in the area so although we didn't see anything dramatic, it was here.

It was very strange watching the storm coming over us and stranger still watching the clouds swirling around above us in a counter-clockwise pattern. I guess under different circumstances, a funnel would form that there's a 'tornado'. As soon as these black clouds passed, the skys opened and the rain poured down for a couple of hours. Flooding has been the biggest problem as Texas has experienced a long and severe drought so the ground just isn't able to absorb the water as quickly as it comes down. As well, a big portion of the older trees have died because of the drought so the high winds take them down easily. From the news reports, there's a whole lotta houses with trees on top of them.

Life in limbo is certainly easier to take with laptop computers, highspeed internet, e-readers, MP3s, etc. and once the worst of the storm passed over, we headed out to Whataburger for lunch. It's a relatively small town with only one main street through 'town' so finding your way around isn't a problem.

Other than that, it has been a quiet day and rather restful. Hope all is well at home. Thanks to Bob & Carol for calling on Skype...it was an excellent connection and good to talk to them. Until next time, love and hugs to all. xx