not sure how or why any of these came about, but ive had them pretty much all of my life. luckily tho, i havent seen but a couple snakes in real life (other than behind glass at the zoo or the pet store), i steer away from heights, avoid the dr at all possible costs, and hope like hell even tho we are technically in "tornado alley" that they will never cross my path...
i have only flown a couple times in my life, interesting stories there too. :O if it werent for my xanax i never would have made it off the plane without them peelin me off the seat.
I have frequent nightmares about tornadoes. getting picked up by them, losing everything, narrowly missing them. i have had 2 close calls in my life many years ago.
love watching electrical storms. love the sound of rain. storms would make me cautious but never really make me "freak out". but lately seems like the weather is getting crazier and crazier and more unpredictable. which is scary. or terrifyin for someone like me who has panic attacks.
my dr always tells me, "dont sweat it, panic attacks are fueled by adrenaline and adrenaline only lasts 5 minutes. then its over.". Maybe so, but im tellin you, ive had several full blown panic attacks that lasted longer than 5 minutes!
anyhow, my husband and i went to Branson, MO for our 5 yr anniversary at the end of Feb this year. (why branson? cuz we got a free vacation in exchange for listenin to a time share salespitch :) along with $150 in bass pro gift cards and a free cruise. was it worth it for me to listen it and tour the place for a couple hours? you bet!
so we cruised up the mountains in AR...o yeah, did i mention i was afraid of HEIGHTS??? :O omg i will never be able to drive in the mountains again. it was terrible. beautiful but terrible. i couldnt look anywhere but the road. i was probably doin 10 miles an hour up and down the whole way. i had several panic attacks driving in the mountains. :/ but i couldnt take my xanax cuz i was driving. couldnt let me husband drive cuz he cant drive (adhd, gets tired easy, doesnt follow speed limits, road signs, etc lol)
we stopped and saw things and places, and did whatever seemed interesting. we had no plans. we dug in the dirt at the diamond mine in AR. lol enjoyed it but we didnt get lucky
we decided to go see some caverns. first couple were closed (off season grrr)
we went to one on a lost road. it looked all run down. but we stopped anyway lol hindsight after the way it looked maybe we shouldnt have. an old abandoned truck sat by the road. a mile and a half broken road that was mostly grown up. it was beautiful once we got to the "office". the office was in front of the mountain and the river ran along the other side of the office. very peaceful but spooky feel.
there was a strange caretaker. kinda gave me a texas chainsaw massacre kinda feeling. lot of old abandoned cars at this place but no other people. this guy said he was the only person around.
we finally make it out alive tho. but were still not safe in our car and back on the road....ive seen too many scary movies! i know what happens next...just when we think were safe, some axe murderer jumps out, whacks us and then they eat us for dinner and serve it to all the next passersby who are dumb enough to go down that abandoned road...and then they sell our belongings in the shop as souvenirs. yikes!
ok back to reality...lol he really was odd, but we did make it out in 1 piece. place still gives me the creepy crawlies tho.
anyhoo...so we continue on our journey. we ended up stopping at another cavern that afternoon. the brochure was pretty cool. people were nice. they actually closed at 5 and we got there at 5:01 and they still gave us the tour which took over an hour. so kudos to cosmic caverns for bein awesome!
the girl took us in the cavern and told us all about it. the story of the cavern, the stories of each type of growth or minerals, the whole kit n kaboodle. loved this place. even a story of a lil ghost boy that supposedly occupies the cavern. (which ironically, the camera i was using takes awesome pics and i took pics at the first cavern in the dark, and bad lighting. and i took pics at this cavern, and on the side of the cavern where the little boys ghost supposedly is, in every picture i took there was a big blue circle on the pics. those pics were taken before she told us the story and my camera has never done that before or since in any kind of lighting!)
we did more road trippin. saw more things and just took our time gettin where we were goin. when we got to branson, it was 2 days before the season opens, so there wasnt alot to do :/ we still found some places to check out. the weather was nice.
then we had "old timey" pics taken at one of the places on the strip and had loads of fun with that!
after the pics we went next door and my husband got a tattoo in memory of his mother. young guy at the house of ink i believe. he doesnt work fast but hes good. (price was good tho).
after the ink we went to eat and then forgot we didnt have anything to put on the tattoo. it was almost midnight. we went to walgreens. they were closed. we went to walmart. THEY were closed. thats so weird, walmart in our tiny lil town stays open 24 hrs and this is a tourist town and they close at 9 or 10? o well. we went across the street to the Radisson which is where we were stayin.
by the time we got ready for bed it was almost 1. opened the curtains and looked out among the sleeping city. left them open cuz we were on the 4th floor. i turned on the tv to see if there was anything exciting. they were showing a tornado watch/warning box on the screen and cities and counties. i looked all over the map and i hadnt heard of any of these places and were drove all over in the last 2 days even in branson. since i couldnt find anything that was close to us we went to bed. (but i left the tv on)
wasnt even 30 minutes later and my husband SHOT up out of bed and says "WHAT THE SH*T!" what? what? WHAT??? he says, "theres a tornado!" :O WHAT?!?! The power is out in the room and across the town. He shoots over to the window and the tornado is literally right in front of our window tearing up building and power lines.
They come over the loud speaker telling us to get to the lower level immediately. I am totally having a panic attack. im telling my husband to come on, but hes standing at the window enjoying the view! so i leave! i head towards the elevators thinking there will be a stairwell there. WRONG! some lil foreign guy had come out of his room and he was running behind me. i turn to go back to the end of the hall to the stairwell. i cleared 4 levels in less than 30 seconds!
i get to the bottom floor and am still in full blown panic attack mode. the hallway is covered with people in pajamas. everyone, except my husband! im shaking and hyperventilating. i call him and get him, he says hes coming. i wait for what seems like eternity and nothing. i call again, finally were reunited. i was so relieved.
we finally get the go ahead to go back to our rooms. the power is still out in the hotel and actually all of the city that we can see from our room. im NOT ok. we lay back down, but i cant sleep. had been praying the whole time and now still saying praises that were ok.
the next morning, we look out the window and can see the damage from the twister. buildings right by us had the roofs ripped up. the duck buses were overturned. debris everywhere. peoples vehicle next to ours had their window blown out. there were 3 pieces of plywood from a nearby roof laying right around our car. but amazingly not a single scratch.
cant say anything else in town was so lucky. dick clarks was torn up. light poles snapped like twigs. a couple of buildings completely gone as in disappeared. mcdonalds and walmart were both a mess. they had most of the rest of the strip (where we had JUST been not 30 minutes before the tornado) blocked off because the damage was so bad. it was crazy. took our breath away.
we did make it home in one piece. however, because of the little close encounter with the tornado, now EVERY storm that comes sends me into severe panic attack mode! and by golly it does NOT last just 5 minutes! if the storm is here for 2 hours, my attack lasts the whole 2 hours. weve had several storms since we got back that were just electrical storms with some rain but had some winds that were gusting up to 70 mph. and im in FULL FREAK OUT MODE the WHOLE TIME!
so...i think i either need a basement or a tornado shelter... :/
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