Memorable weekend

Friday, June 06, 2008

By Bill Sniffin

Dodging tornadoes, dealing with ugly traffic on I-80, paying $100 gasoline fills and enduring the threat of floods - whew! And how did you spend your Memorial Day weekend?
Mine was, in a word, memorable.
People across Wyoming dealt with tornadoes, heavy rain, fog, snow and cancelled picnics and events. The bad weather stretched from the Rockies to where I was in the Midwest.

Members of my family got caught up in those horrible tornadoes in northeast Iowa last Sunday that killed seven people and injured 70. Five of the injured included two of my brothers, two nephews and a sister-in-law.

I drove through little Hazleton, Iowa, about 4:30 p.m. last Sunday. My brothers Jim and Dan and family members came through the same area two hours later and were nailed by a tornado that lifted a nearby mobile home and slammed it into their Suburban, which then rolled and came to rest amid pieces of the trailer.
Jim’s son, Michael, was sucked out of his shoes and out of the car but landed safely nearby. Jim’s wife, Laura, had to be freed by local firemen using the Jaws of Life. All are safe now, thankfully.

Then another brother, Ron, who lives in Laramie, was watching a tornado roll through his town and lift the roof off an adjoining building and knock out some of his windows earlier the same weekend.

Yes, I have eight brothers. I could also tell you about John driving around thunderstorms, and my sister, Mary, spending much of last Sunday in the basement in Strawberry Point, Iowa.
Cheyenne folks dodged a tornado and south of the border a person was killed in Windsor, Colo.

While we were gone, Lander had more than three inches of rain over the weekend and recorded its wettest May, ever. And it was raining from Wyoming to Wisconsin.
We have driven across Nebraska for almost 40 years, and never have we seen so much water standing in the fields and puddles everywhere.

On our way home on Monday, Memorial Day, the highway was packed with huge trucks. I am convinced that a toll should be mandatory for these huge rigs to help pay for maintenance.

How cold can it get in Wyoming on May 26? It was 38 degrees at both Muddy Gap and Beaver Rim. Probably got below freezing later that night.
Drove through a thick fog between Cheyenne and Laramie. Pretty scary … kept thinking about those big, multiple accidents up there awhile back.
Meanwhile in my hometown of Wadena, Iowa, my brother John, my mom and I attended the annual Alumni Banquet.

It was also an opportunity for me to get into an argument with a local business leader about what a boondoggle ethanol is. He was quite insulted and made it clear that until we have a shortage of food, my argument was not valid.
And they were pleased with the recently passed farm bill, which gives even more money to Midwestern farmers.

Also, while in Iowa, I caught up with my old friend, Dan, the curmudgeon, who offered up the following philosophy in-between coughing and hacking on his cigarettes.  He thinks the following:

John McCain would be the best president for Wyoming.
Hillary Clinton would be the best president for the USA.
Barack Obama would be the best president for the world.
He supports Sen. Obama but thinks Sen. McCain will win.
Go figure.
PERMALINK:
Memorable weekend | Planet JH News Article: General News

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