Tornados in Minnesota? Dark clouds filled the sky. We stopped in a MacDonald's for a quick coffee in Wadena and the town sirens went off and a U.S. National Guardsman told us a tornado was headed our way. The staff at MacDonald's herded all of us into the ice box. That's past the french fry stand, past where the hamburgers are cooked. About 20 people stood shivering and waiting for the siren to stop for 10 minutes, the longest 10 minutes of the trip so far!

We got the all-clear, and I had the most delicious chocolate shake to go as we wanted to get past the storm. The sky looked clear, so we began driving north to Fargo, North Dakota, only to see this ahead of us. Allen kept saying, that's not really a bad storm. Then the radio kicked on with a severe thunderstorm warning. This time, we drove right through it. This picture is taken right out our front window; the storm filled the sky. Heavy rain, lightning, bits of hail, clouds so dark we couldn't see the horizon, and a constant threat of tornados kept us focused on our driving for the next 20 minutes as we made our way (along with a few other commuters) to Moorhead. And that's as close as I want to get to a tornado!