Weather Permitting
Chapter 63 – Slippery When Living
Monday was business as usual—admin catch-up at Crystal Bridges Café, fries that deserved a public apology (burger was good though!), and a home-cooked salmon dinner that tried its best despite Walmart’s idea of “filet” being something between a fish and a porcupine.
Then Tuesday arrived, and Arkansas decided to remind me why people here take weather personally.
When the storm warnings upgraded to “severe,” I thought, “Great, it’s my first oil change day!” Because obviously, where else would I want to be but a Jiffy Lube garage surrounded by puddles of motor oil during a thunderstorm?
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| Just look at that floor! Rain water PLUS engine oil LOL |
But while I was recovering, the Arkansas Storm Tracker Facebook page went full Hollywood.
“Tornado watch issued.”
“Rotation forming near Harrison.”
“Look at these shelf clouds!”
Shelf clouds?! I was googling them like a student cramming for a weather exam: beautiful, deadly, ominous, photogenic—if you live to post them.
By 3 p.m., my heart rate was competing with the storm radar animation. I panic-shopped at Walmart—essentials like pasta, bacon, and three different kinds of chips, because clearly, survival is about variety. Then, naturally, I went for a pedicure.
In my defense, it was flash flooding, and the nail spa felt like the safest bunker in town. The massage chair’s arm-sleeves hugged me like a high-end straitjacket while outside, nature was auditioning for Twister 3: The Reckoning.
When I stepped out, the sky looked like a movie poster—half Armageddon, half postcard. One side was dark and swirling, the other side absurdly blue. I drove toward the blue, but every glance in the rearview mirror looked like Oz meets The Walking Dead.
Nelson, meanwhile, was just working away in his cozy office as if meteorological doom weren’t on the menu. We coordinated our “tornado plan”—I’d park behind his office, ready to abandon the van and sprint (or, given my track record, shuffle carefully) to safety.
By 7 p.m., the storm downgraded from “tornado watch” to “flood watch,” which in Arkansas is basically like being told, “You’re fine, just don’t drown.” Nelson strolled to the van as if nothing had happened. The air was calm, the sky clear, and my pasta had been sitting cold for three hours.
I’d spent all day ready to fight for my life against a funnel cloud, and now it looked like the weather gods were just pranking me for sport. Still, the relief was immense. Once Nelson was safely inside, my adrenaline collapsed faster than a lawn chair in a gust.
I fell asleep instantly—probably the kind of sleep where even a real tornado couldn’t have woken me.
Because let’s be honest: by the time you’ve survived oil-slick floors, Jiffy Lube acrobatics, and Facebook meteorologists yelling about shelf clouds, you’ve already faced the storm.
Chapter 64 – The Great Calm
After the chaos of Tornado Tuesday, I woke up Wednesday determined to live a life of pure, uneventful domesticity. I wanted a day so boring that even the weather would yawn.
The universe, for once, complied. No howling winds. No emergency alerts. No oil-slick acrobatics. Just me, my grocery list, and the bliss of knowing that today’s biggest threat was probably running out of milk.I restocked supplies, picked up mail, and headed to Blowing Springs RV Park — a fitting name considering the previous day’s trauma, though thankfully, the only thing blowing today was a gentle breeze. I reorganized the van, did laundry, and felt like I was slowly reassembling my sanity.
Dinner was sausage ragu pasta — a recipe I found that uses Italian sausage as the main character instead of ground beef. It was hearty, fragrant, and exactly what I needed after 24 hours of “tornado anxiety cardio.” Honestly, it was the first time all week that I sat down, ate something hot, and didn’t have one eye on the weather radar.
The evening light filtered through the trees in that calm, golden way that almost felt fake — like nature’s apology for trying to kill me the day before. Nelson worked late again, but I didn’t mind. For once, solitude didn’t feel like “waiting.” It felt like exhaling.
I curled up in the van afterward, full of pasta and relief, listening to the soft hum of crickets instead of wind howls. If Tuesday was a lesson in chaos, Wednesday was its quiet sequel — proof that sometimes the best kind of adventure is when nothing happens at all.
Chapter 65 – Dinner Dash and the "Shorty" Prophecy
Thursday began on a deceptively calm note. Nelson left early for work, and I headed straight back to the campground to reclaim a bit of peace. I washed my hair, curled it (against all humidity logic), and decided that even if I lived in a van, I didn’t have to look like it.
There’s something strangely uplifting about doing small, civilized things in the middle of van chaos — like proof that you still belong to the human race. I even put on my brand-new New Balance 327s. They were roomy around the toes (a miracle after months of stubbing them on van furniture) and felt like walking on clouds. “New shoes, new woman,” I told myself, even if the “new woman” still had a swivel toilet two feet away from the kitchen.
The real challenge of the day, however, was timing. We were driving south for the weekend and planned to stop at our favorite restaurant, Rice Forest in Fayetteville. The place closes at 8 p.m., and Nelson swore he’d finish work at five. Naturally, at 7:15, he was still on a call, phone glued to his face while I simmered like an overboiled noodle.
When he finally emerged, I turned into a woman possessed. I drove that van like it owed me dinner, gliding through the Ozarks’ twists and turns with one goal: get to Rice Forest before the kitchen closes.We pulled into the parking lot at 7:45 p.m. — a small miracle — only to find the place swarmed with teenagers. They were spilling into the street, chatting, laughing, blocking every possible entrance like a flash mob with no choreography. I crept the van forward, window rolled down, trying to politely signal “Please move or I’ll starve.”
That’s when a girl suddenly shouted, “You can do it, Shorty!” I froze. Shorty? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be offended — it’s not like she could even see my height. I was sitting down! Her friend quickly told her to stop, but she doubled down: “But she IS a shorty!”
I didn’t sense malice, just pure Arkansas teenage energy, but I was baffled nonetheless. Maybe “Shorty” is their version of “Queen.” Either way, I decided to take it as encouragement — because, really, I did do it. I parked that beast of a van like a pro and sprinted (okay, power-walked) into the restaurant.
Rice Forest didn’t disappoint. I ordered all our favorites while Nelson wrapped up his call, and by the time he joined me, I was already halfway through the first dish. The food was as perfect as I remembered — warm, nostalgic, like a little reward for surviving tornadoes, slippery floors, and scheduling arguments.
The drive afterward was quiet, the road dark and winding but oddly peaceful. We found our campground without incident, plugged into shore power, and let the night swallow the stress of the week.
Outside the shower house, two scorpions were fighting — which honestly looked kind of badass, like an arthropod version of “West Side Story.” After that, we both crashed into bed, clean, full, and blissfully tired.
It wasn’t a perfect day, but it was real. And sometimes, in vanlife, that’s the best you can hope for: dinner before closing, a working outlet, and no tornado in sight.
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