Minnesota... or HELL

What we originally thought was heat lightening turned out to be something entirely different... We had visited Mellissa's friend Liz in Wisconsin a couple of hours earlier and were making our way across Southeast Minnesota and were watching the lightening flash on the horizon. We both thought it was heat lightening... the sky looked relatively normal and non-threatening. We were going to stop and let the dogs out at the next rest area and before jumping out of the car I noticed the trees billowing in the wind, which made me think that it probably wasn't heat lightening, but an actual thunderstorm. I'd been through plenty of those in Florida and wasn't that worried about it... until a few seconds later. 

We were both at the back door of the car, getting ready to leash the dogs when the sky light up bright white and we both gasped and jumped into the Jeep. Like it would have done any good at that point right? Once you see the lightening, it’s too late and not to mention… our asses and legs were still hanging out of the Jeep. Mellissa screams, forget it, lets' go. She practically mows me down to save herself (kidding) and when I make it around to the driver's side of the Jeep screams at me "Go, Go, Go!"

In a matter of minutes, the sky changed completely.

Yes, that is an actual picture of the horizon. I drove so fast trying to get the heck out of there and at times I thought we were nearly through it. Mellissa was freaking out (so was I) and I told her that I thought we were through the worst of it because I could see light on the horizon, the tornado warning issues on the radio were all nearly expired and I was driving like a bat out of hell. Then the freeway curved, straight toward the pitch-black sky, or the bright orange sky with the pitch-black cloud that sat in the center of it. I knew I was wrong about being through the worst of it because it was right there in front of us. I remember my brain going "uhhhhh..." then I thought “well, I just wont say anything and hopefully she wont notice.” She was nice enough to not point out that I was WRONG... until we talked and laughed about it the next day.

Like I said before, I drove as fast as I could and fortunately, we made it through Minnesota alive. We didn't really know how bad it was until Mellissa overheard people talking at a gas station just before the South Dakota border and they mentioned several houses being destroyed. We looked it up on the internet the next day and found the below at Weather.com. There are other videos out there as well. Just watching them makes my heart race.

  http://www.weather.com/outlook/videos/iwitness-tornado-forms-on-camera-17595#17595