4-5 hours late. Weather delays.

4-5 hours late. Weather delays. Waited 20 minutes in a roadcut for serious winds to pass. Heavy rain, slow speed across Nebraska.

We passed through one town to find the grain bins collapsed and fields flattened. People were just coming out of hiding to see what damage had been done. It seems we just missed a tornado, or at the very least very strong winds.

The train stopped on the tracks for a short while, then we moved into a road cut where the majority of the train was below grade. By going to the upper deck of the observation car we could see the storm clouds and the wind rocked us just a bit. There were a couple of places that looked like the clouds were trying to decide if they were going to form a funnel, but mostly this was one impressive thunderstorm. Very interesting to us with our renewed interest in weather patterns. Very frightening to the city girl from the East Coast who had not experience with this type of weather.

She was on the phone to someone, crying and saying she was afraid she was going to die when I first saw her. Another woman was talking to her, and I thought it was her mother. Turns out the older woman was just another passenger trying to comfort her. We sat with the younger woman for a bit and talked about the storm and what the train crew was doing to keep us safe. She finally calmed down.

This episode reminds me of how important it can be to manage your fear. I feel afraid at times when we are sailing, or at least get a little jolt of adrenaline. The trick is to not let that reaction take over and keep you from thinking about what needs to be done next. For all that I think of myself as a bit timid, I can see that in many ways I am not timid at all.