Note: This piece can technically end on the page above, but I've decided to add to this piece since my mind is on it, and I don't know how much time I'll get to write the rest of this week. 

Case in point, I still vividly remember my 2018 trip to my grandpa's childhood farm in North Dakota. That was a particularly stormy year, and I was not at all okay with sleeping in my great aunt's trailer house, even if I had a bed, AC, and wifi in it. Instead, I spent over half of the nights sleeping on a couch in the old farmhouse, because of the evening and nightly storms that came through. 

One in particular was worse than the others. The meteorologist on the news kept saying that night's storm would be particularly nasty, but nobody except for me believed him. In fact, my entire family rolled their eyes at me when I decided to make my bed in the farmhouse for the third night in a row. 

"I've lived in this house for five years..." my great aunt told me, "I feel much better in here than I did in the farmhouse. This place's anchored down, y'know. There are eight huge spikes, eight feet long, shot twenty feet down into the ground at an angle to secure this place. That ol' farmhouse, on the other hand. It's got some pretty bad foundation issues-"

"But the farmhouse has a basement." I replied, "And I would like to have a basement to go to just in case."

"Well, Okay then. If you change your mind, I'll keep the doors unlocked for ya. We get 'bad storms' all the time, and they're never nearly as bad as they say. A little thunder, lightning, and rain's all we've got." my great aunt smirked. 

In the old farmhouse, my grandpa came into the living room (where I'd set up for the night), and tried to convince me that I'd be much more comfortable in my great aunt's house, but I staunchly refused. 

"Somethin' big's comin'." I scowled, "I can feel it in my bones."

"Hah! Is that so?" Grandpa Lyle laughed. 

"Yeah..." I nodded, seriously concerned. 

Indeed, I could literally feel the change in air pressure in my body as the storm approached. My knees throbbed a little bit, and my neck was a little stiff. Plus, the weatherman said that the storm was gonna be a particularly nasty one. So, I wasn't gonna take my chances regardless of if I could feel the storm in my bones or not. 

I don't remember exactly when the power went out. But, I don't remember being shocked when it did. However, the lightning was downright impressive. I didn't need a flashlight to find my way around the house, because the lightning flashed like a strobe light, illuminating the world in a blue-white glow at least once every two seconds, followed by rolling thunder. 

The winds outside put Colorado's "murder winds" to shame, and were not just breaking branches and bouncing lawn furniture across the ground. Whole trees that were decades old were splitting in two and/or falling over, and pieces of metal and heavy lawn furniture were literally flying through the air at 90+ miles an hour. A couple miles east of us was the Garrison Dam, which recorded several wind gusts in excess of 120 miles per hour. A few miles south of us, a tornado destroyed a house with the family in it, and the only reason they survived was because the dad of the house shot the basement door with a shotgun to get it to open. Oh, and a family friend decided to go camping on the lake that weekend, and died when his camper was flipped over and blown into the lake. 

The only reason I didn't hit the basement that evening, was because my grandpa told me not to. At first, he told me he didn't want me to breathe in the basement air for too long. So, I spent the night on the living room couch wearing my dirtbike helmet and boots with the doors locked, windows closed, curtains drawn, and a heavy comforter thrown over me. But, when we woke up alive the next morning, he admitted over breakfast that he didn't want to scare my little brother by bringing us into the basement. 

I can understand not wanting to traumatize a little kid. But, in hindsight, we really should've spent the night in the basement, even if it made my little brother cry. After all, the basement was way safer than the rest of the house (especially because the mold in the basement had been dealt with well before my visit to the farm).