Thunder, Lightening, Tornadoes, and Baby Squirrels

Where do I even start?

Last night we, the volleyball team, was planning on going to St Louis for a relaxing night eating dinner at Bread Co. and picking up Tara Edwards from the airport. Well, lesson one that we learned was to not plan on taking a van that is already out on another trip. The van we were expecting took two hours and a half longer to get to Prin than we were told so by the time we left, we were already late.

We wanted to eat in the loop but it was a Friday night and time was tight so we decided to try and venture out to a Bread Co. nearby and of course, the road was blocked. Well, we decided to keep rolling with the punches and just eat at McDonald's as much as that idea killed me a little inside. Of course, that would have been too easy and they wouldn't take our tax exempt card. On to the next plan...Arby's. We finally ate and things were looking up until we pulled out of the parking lot and heard the tornado sirens going off. Getting a little flustered by what we should do, we ended up going the wrong way and had to turn around, finally getting to the airport.

As if that wasn't enough, there were tornado warnings close to campus and torrential rain and flash flood warnings as well that we would have to drive through. We waited for a bit but decided it didn't look too bad and it didn't...until we got to the river road. I could see the actual wall of rain and we had to slow down to 20 mph with thunder and lightening everywhere. Across the river I could see two clouds that looked suspiciously like tornadoes but I didn't want to admit it at the time. The freshmen were nervous while I was just trying to hide my nerves, unsuccessfully I think.

Well we finally got back to Prin, in the heaviest rain I have ever been in and got safe inside, thank you God.

To make things more interesting, the storm from yesterday afternoon had knocked three baby squirrels out of their nest and they had fallen to the ground, soaked and cold. Some girls on the team rescued them and I think that they have all been taken back by their poor mother after having put them back.

Phew, that makes me tired just thinking about the craziness of last night. Fortunately we learned that our team can have fun whatever they are doing. No one complained or got frustrated, we kept laughing even through the storm, although I think that those laughs were more to keep me from crying than for a genuine silly feeling.

Stormy Illinois

Here I am back at sports camp already, I can never believe how fast summer seems to go. The whole team will get here tonight, right now we are just the three seniors, one sophomore, and the five freshmen. Practice starts bright and early tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. with testing which should be a nice awakening back to playing college ball.

A huge storm just went over us as Ally and I were walking back from the dining room. The thunder was so loud and the lightening looked so close we ran as fast as we could but with flip flops, that isn't very fast so we still got soaked.

I'm realizing now how nice we had it last sports camp when it was so cool. I don't think we'll receive the same hospitality this year with temperatures already up in the 90's and higher. The gym luckily has no air-conditioning so we can fully appreciate the insulating capacities of the gym which turn out to hold in heat extremely well while keeping out any cool air.

Tonight we are going into St. Louis for dinner in the loop and then taking the team to pick up our last arrival, Tara. The schedule for the next three weeks is going to be pretty rigorous with three practices a day almost everyday and then tournaments in Chicago and Indiana two weekends in a row. Lots of traveling, we won't be bored that is for sure.

Back to School

Last full week of summer before I head back to beautiful Illinois where the air is more dense than the dirt and it's too hot to even sleep with sheets at night. At least I have volleyball to go back to, I wonder how the other students do it - go back to school without having a team to go back to.
Fall quarter always sneeks up on me the same way every year. Summer seems like it could never end, it's over two months right! Nope, everytime without fail I realize that summer is over before I've been able to do half of the things I was hoping to. I can only dream of what it will be like not to have to leave next fall. No more deadlines of leaving home for 10 weeks or more at a time. No more fried mid-west food. No more living in a dorm. No more having your whole day scheduled around specific meal times. Man, what will be left...I can't wait.
Not that school isn't great, I am so grateful to be going to such a great school with such a great dorm and teachers and a team that I love but just like everyone I have talked to has said, I am grateful but I am ready to take what I have learned and go too. How I'll use it, that will be a whole other adventure.