tornado sighting!

this weekend i went down to visit my parents and pick up my cousin reeko who will be staying with us for a week. the weather was really rather nice for most of the ride, until suddenly we were thrust into crazy-dark-double-rainbow land. we could totally see the front of clouds coming towards us and the very visible line that separated the nice clear skies from the darkly ominous weather approaching (in writing that, i had weird deja vu of 'the phantom tollbooth' - maybe it was the idea of a long road, i remember long roads in that book).

anyways, to make the first part of the story short: lots of rain, lots of lightning, lots of thunder. the skies cleared. the heavens sang. we approached a bridge. and i saw a waterspout.

it was so tiny! so thin and wispy! naturally, like the common folk we are, we pulled over to gawk and take many many bad pictures with our camera phones (plural).

and yes, anthony and i have the exact same camera.

so we watch and watch, and it's sooo cool. we can see how the water's being churned up by the spout and... and... hm... looks like it's getting bigger. maybe we'd better, you know, get a move on.

we drive on and through the rearview mirror and the back window, we notice that it's growing like crazy! like 4 times the size! *clickclickclick* go the camera phones, but there's no way we're stopping now. it's looking rather... intimidating and adrenal gland triggering.

further shortening the story: our exit is closed, we get off at the next one and have to go back towards the (now) tornado. we freak a little, but then realize it's pinching itself off from the bottom and leaving the stricken earth.

insane, eh? here's a photo, though not taken by myself. i got it from this website and it was taken by a certain sarah coward (i have no idea who she is, but wanted to give due credit).



and here's another site with better photos.

and that, was my exciting weekend.

oh yea, i also saw charlie and the chocolate factory. could the songs have sucked ANY more? *big sigh*