An Unexpected Stop.

UPDATE: severe weather has stopped us in our tracks outside Cleveland. and when we say severe weather, we here in the I-90 travel plaza are NOT kidding around.

thanks to Eva's mom, we have a NOAA weather radio (see me holding said radio with a look that defines this whole experience above), and it's been going off like a needy puppy. first there were severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, and then the dreaded tornado warning some fifteen miles away from us. in a carefully controlled panic, we drove to the next travel plaza and got the hell out of the car.

this travel plaza i think may exist in an alternate universe where American highway stops have wi-fi, food-court like nasty dinner choices, live doppler weather maps on television screens, and free phones to call any hotel on a long list of places you might want to stay while avoiding your tornado.

needless to say, the place is packed to the rim with freaked out wet travellers. we were able to obtain gross food (for the second time today for me, which is a shame because we'd done a halfway decent job of eating better previously), call our hotel in Pittsburgh and cancel it (the storms were basically huge and running ahead of us - we would have been in this same weather for the next five hours if we hadn't decided to just stop moving and let it go on ahead), and call a nearby hotel and book it.

and now i've posted to this here blog as well.

tomorrow we will drive the 359 remaining miles to Baltimore, a slightly longer day than planned, but perfectly manageable in the absence of blinding rain and funnel clouds.