An adventure in storm running

What's storm running? Well, it's the opposite of storm chasing! We have been working on our 1973 Mustang since November of 02, and while she still isn't a thing of beauty and certainly won't win at a concours show, she's come a LONG way. Last night seemed like the perfect night to take her out to her first cruise night in years. The sun was shining, they were predicting some showers later and a friend that usually works late could meet us there with his Duster. PERFECT! We went home, grabbed a few chairs and put them in the "back seat" (we are waiting on a roll cage install, so there really isn't much in the way of an interior-just the two front seats, seat belts and dash), and headed up to the cruise night. This particular cruise night is about half an hour from our house. We had a good shake down cruise up to the park where it's held, noting we needed to get the alignment fixed and put some heat shield below the carpet when it's put in (the floors were HOT, HOT, HOT!).

Once we arrived, we got comfortable in our chairs behind the car, commenting on how strange it felt to see her out of the garage. The music was playing, we had some hot dogs for dinner and we were just enjoying the atmosphere of cars, cruisers and the oldies the DJ was spinning. Our friend arrived with his Duster and parked a few spaces down. We looked at each others cars (he just picked his up and hadn't seen ours in years). We were talking about Gear 4 Gearheads and his business (he owns a repair shop and just bought a new place). Just a good night in general. There's just nothing better than a summer night with tunes, cars, cruisers and good food. Nothing.

Then I heard a distant rumble. Was that thunder or a truck with an empty trailer hitting a bump? Can't tell over the music...we went back to our conversation and admiring how clean (as in straight and rust free) his car is. Ok, THAT was thunder. Hm. Back to talking. Looking around, we see others start to pack up and leave in a hurry. Took a look at the sky just as sheet lighting lit things up. OK, time to GO!

So, we pack the chairs into the Mustang and start heading home. Now, remember how we noted we needed to get the alignment fixed? We can't go over 40/45 because the tires start to scream. Now we're headed away from the storm, but it's gaining ground behind us. The sky looked like it was 10 pm not 8 pm and it was filled with sheet and bolts of lightening. We made it to a north/south street to head back towards our home town. Now we're running parallel to the storm, watching it close in on us as we pray for each light to stay green. We made it home, got her in the garage and no sooner did we lock the garage and gate than WHAMO. The wind blew in hard enough that leaves and branches were flying and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see across the street!

So, we were successful in our storm running. Lesson learned-never believe the weather people!