R and J in the USA

As you last heard, we were getting ready to flee the severe storm warnings here in Mississippi out of an abundance of caution.

Long story short. That ain’t happening.

Our original plan, as reported in our last blog post filled with the inspiring tale of us running away like scaredy-cats, was in response to a recognition of two things. 

One, not having much experience with weather and its various dangers outside of the severe snow storms and ice storms of upstate New York, we don’t have enough experience with severe wind (this severe anyways), hail of this size and tornado warnings in a camper van to be confident in our ability to not accidentally make decisions that might put ourselves needlessly in harms way. 

And two, one thing we do know is that one of the most dangerous places to be in such weather is in a camper van. 

So, when we read the various weather warnings on Thursday that said that such severe weather, including level 4 violent and long-track tornados were on their way for exactly where we were at the time and that all folks should begin preparing then, we took notice. We don’t know much about tornadoes, but we know enough to know that “violent and long-tracked” sounds scary. We know a van of this size can tip over in winds of about 120mph and would do some mighty wild shaking with a lot less winds than that. We decided that our “preparations” were to just get the heck outta there and with as much as speed as we could.

Despite deciding that this was the most prudent plan, we were a bit bummed to not be able to stay in Mississippi for a couple of reasons. One, we haven’t yet interrupted our time in a state, and we were enjoying being steeped in the Mississippi experience. Two, weather is part of the experience of a place and we were interested to be able to witness the storm and be a part of it if we could, while still being prudent about it. And, three, we had had a few days in place planned to do some catch up on planning for our last few states and post-trip plans and logistics and we had been looking forward to a little break from driving – ie, we were tired and lazy and not interested to add a ton more driving to the next few days.

Well, our dear GalliVAN (or Vanna White as Julie likes to call her) had the perfect idea of how to help us get the best of all worlds. She was not so into this fleeing and insisted we stay. 

Thursday night, we drove the 3 hours south and west from Tupelo to Jackson with a plan to get our state capitol visit in first thing Friday morning at 8AM, make a stop at the Two Museums of Mississippi (the state history museum and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum) and get out of town by noon. That would give us plenty of time to get ahead of the storm. Julie was still asleep in the back when Ryan started up the van early Friday morning to move from our spot in a Cracker Barrel parking lot to drive over to the nearest coffee shop for a little coffee shop writing time before the capitol opened at 8. As Ryan drove that short distance, Julie noticed the van underneath her shaking with a rhythmic rumble that was uncharacteristic.

After an hour at the coffee shop that Julie opted to spend still laying in bed fighting a head cold that had arisen a few days prior (2 negative covid tests had confirmed it was, thankfully, not covid), Ryan hopped back in the driver’s seat to bring us over to the capitol. When we got there, Ryan called back to Julie in her cold-induced stupor. 

“The check engine light is on.”

We have been on the road for 9.5 months. We have driven tens of thousands of miles. We have visited 45 states, 43 that we have driven to and through. We have had two flat tires, one mysteriously missing solar panel, one banged up bike rack and 2 instances of needing the assistance of strangers to pull our van out of something we couldn’t get out of on our own. We started the trip with a house battery that needed rewiring if we were going to have any working electricity inside the van and a we had had a house heater that we had to get checked up four times. But this morning, the one morning we really needed to be able to drive, not to get where we wanted to be, but for the purpose of getting the heck outta somewhere we didn’t want to be, this was the first time on the trip where our “check engine” light came on.

Looks like this van of ours wasn’t so keen on our “storm-fleeing” plans. She had other plans for us entirely.

Ryan dropped Julie off at the capitol so at least one of us would see it before we left town and, with fingers crossed, he headed over to the nearest dealer to get it checked out. 

While Julie was touring the capitol and then taking in what she could of the museum, Ryan was finding out two things. One, the problem was easily fixable and not that expensive. And, two, the part needed to do that fixing was in Atlanta and wouldn’t be able to be in Jackson and in our van until Saturday morning. The severe weather was planning to arrive in Jackson on Saturday afternoon, at least according to the weather man. There would be no safe way for us to drive this van out of the area before the storm arrived.

At first glance, this might seem like a problem, but it was actually the ideal solution to our severe weather storm scenario.

The main issue we had with being in town when the storms would come through was we didn’t want to be in them in a camper van. We didn’t particularly like the idea of parking our van outside somewhere during the storms, even if we weren’t in it. Now our van was going to have an indoor home, at least during the nighttime and we could use those extra Marriot points we had been saving up for just such a rainy day to ride the storm out from inside a Jackson hotel. Our van will be inside the shop  while they work on it Saturday, protected from the golf-ball sized hail and 100mph winds.

So, we did not flee. Thanks to Vanna, we did not need to.

We’ll see how today’s storm unfolds safely from inside a Marriot. If those violent, long-tracked tornadoes head right for this building, which is unlikely, we’ll follow the Marriot safety protocols and cross our fingers.

What gives us the most comfort is the locals. No one here seems concerned at all. We don’t mind weather, we just want to make safe decisions. We know back home when travel advisories and weather warnings are something to heed and be concerned about and when they are not. There are plenty of times back home where there is weather that says don’t travel and we know that really means, just drive carefully. And we also know enough about the weather back home when a “don’t travel” warning really means, don’t you dare step out your front door. Local folks know. So, as we’ve looked around and chatted with various local folks, we know enough to know that we have taken good care and are making solid and safe choices.

We are not afraid of a little weather. But it sounds like what is coming is not little at all. Our van has endured 2 mountain pass snow storms, quarter sized-hail, and enough wind to feel some significant shaking from side to side. And, of course, plenty of rain. Having felt what 40mph wind gusts feel like from inside the van, we are very happy to be in a hotel room on a day that winds could reach up to 100mph. We are hoping that, when we pick up the van, she looks the same as she did when we left and is humming and happy and refreshed.

Today is Saturday and the storms are expected to come through in 4 hours or so. Thanks to Vanna, we’ve got ourselves a safe and front row seat, whether we like it or not.