I found myself in Birmingham last Friday evening. I was at the BJCC covering Red Bay’s basketball game.

When I was done there I had a big decision to make; I could drive back to Russellville or go to my mom’s house in Jasper.

The sky over Birmingham betrayed little of the storms that would soon hit the state, so I decided that I might try to head back to Franklin County.

I changed my mind by the time I got to my car.

I had brought some overnight stuff just in case I needed to stay somewhere other than my apartment, so heading to my mom’s house wouldn’t be a big deal.

It was 30 miles closer, anyway.

By the time I made it into Walker County I could see some really awesome lightning striking ground well north of my location of I-22.

It barely rained on me during the hour-long trip, and the road was even mostly dry as I headed north.

I made it to Jasper without a hitch, and my mom’s house was just a few more miles away. The lightning was as present as it had been miles down the road, but it still wasn’t over my head.

The wind started to pick up as I walked up the steps at the place where I was raised.

My stepdad had the weather on the TV, and I could see for the first time since I left Russellville earlier that Friday morning hat the weather map looked like.

The word I would use to describe it would be bad. Franklin County, and more specifically Russellville, seemed to be in the worst part of the storm north of Walker County.

If I had tried to drive all the way back that night, I would have been in for some foul weather up Highway 43.

I was immediately glad that I went to Jasper instead of up here.

Incidentally the weather struck a few hours after my arrival at my mom’s, but I was so tired that I fell asleep and missed the worst of it.

I didn’t know that we’d had any bad weather at all.