Crossing over the last distinct ridges of the Appalachians, we fell onto the crinkled plateau of eastern Tennessee... our eyes set on Nashville. There we would catch the Natchez Trace Parkway, camp somewhere along it, and then continue down it south into Mississippi.
Having checked the weather forecast before we left Asheville, I knew that rain was in the forecast. And after a quick back-and-forth text session with my mother and my friend Emily, I came to learn the forecast in more detail... this is the text interchange:
Me: Could u look up the overnite/am weather forecastt for nashville
Response: Am I getting paid for this? Rain starts 30% at 11 pm tonight and makes its way to 70% 3 am and rains throughout the day
So...the storms were coming from the SW and would arrive in Nashville by 6 am on Saturday, providing us with the narrowest of windows in which to camp and stay dry.
We arrived at Nashville in early evening, found the Natchez Trace, and headed south. After driving south along the parkway for 50 miles we found a campground named after Merriweather Lewis(of the Lewis and Clark expedition) who died there in his old age.
In the mindset of Lewis we attacked the campsite: collected wood, prepared food, and most importantly, set up our tents. It was shortly after our first meal together that we saw the silent flashes. They came frequently from the west, extending high above the canopy beyond us. It was not until 10 pm that we began to hear the rolls of thunder - long, extended, and, dare I say, ominous.
There we sat on the picnic table watching until we couldn't any longer, until we felt the first drops and slunk into our tents, prepared as we ever going to be. Soon thereafter, the rolls of thunder became punctuated cracks, culminating in a hair-raising 10 minute stretch where lightning struck all around us. In my tent I felt the energy surge through me with every strike, felt my body instinctively and futilely contorting itself in a defensive crouch. In a particularly lucid moment, I became aware of the helplessness in which I lay. It was going to be struck or un-struck... dead or alive.
But, I didn't get struck. I stayed alive. And as that storm quickly passed we began to whoop and holler from our sleeping bags, to exult in our survival. As the rain lightly pattered on the tent roof, my heartbeat eased and I fell into a deep sleep.
That was until 5 am, when I heard...
Boom. Boom. Boom-ba-crack-boom.
Shit. The real storms were just arriving. All of us were suddenly awake and frantically packing up our camp. We could not get our things wet!
Still not fully aware of what we were about to undertake, we sped out of the campground and back onto the Natchez Trace, which we followed until we branched off westwards to our next intended destination: Memphis. It was on the way to Memphis that the first storm hit. Like the storm the night before, this was no North Carolina event. It was an isolated cell visible to the naked eye. Each storm was a massive black cloud, a sheet of rain, and as it seemed, directly in our path.
Unlike the storms in North Carolina that deteriorate while passing over the Appalachians, these Tennessee storms were still gathering strength... fresh off of the Great Plains, the greatest severe weather generator in the entire world.
The rain fell in thick drops, the wind whipped in squalls, and it seemed as if buckets of water were being poured onto the car... and the road itself? Oh, it was a river. But on we plugged. Out of a storm, into another, all the way to Memphis. It wasn't until we got to the Quetzal Cafe in Memphis that we realized what we had gone through. See below:
Upon reading the forecast for Memphis we chose to ditch our endeavors there and head south to Louisiana to flee the storms. The only catch... we had to drive through Mississippi to get there! A place where the storms had already been building. Tyler began driving then, and with my hands freed from the wheel I began to document. Photos and captions shall take us the rest of the way...
Outside of the Quetzal Cafe in Memphis, right before we took off. The whole area was under a Tornado Warning... but Valkyrie the Camry was, and still is, forever confident.
Having headed south we entered a storm. Below is looking out the windshield.
Below is the most sobering moment of all... As we continued south on Highway 55, we noticed a break in the forest border. As we approached we saw the sawed-off swath of a tornado, obviously having just passed across the highway. Its path was 300 or 400 feet wide, having cut out a winding stretch as far as we could see in either direction. Here is the best I could do, a photo of the leading edge of the cut.
Tyler was steadfast through all of this. :-)
Phew. So that was it. What are you thinking right now? Was this insanity? Amazing? Are you a worried mother?
Or, are you like me...? Absolutely thrilled and exhilarated to be exposed to such raw nature?
Yes yes! How can you be anything about exhilarated?! Weather is an awesome force.
The storms that we passed through, along with their brothers and sisters, have killed up to two dozen people in Tennessee and Mississippi. Rivers have jumped their banks and set people on their heels fleeing.
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