I was born in Minnesota, land of not only 10,000 lakes but lots of tornados, too. From what I've been told throughout the years, I was in a tornado when I was 18 months old. Houses were demolished, people died, and my mother was bathing me when the funnel clouds first swirled through our neighborhood.

My family survived with nothing more than scary tales of the tornado. Mine are just retellings because being only 18 months old at the time, I obviously have no recollection.

I've lived in Colorado for more than 40 years. Tornados pretty much never happen in Colorado Springs, where I've lived for more than 30 years. Last Friday, though, an Emergency Services alert blasted my cell phone, followed by a message stating "Tornado Warning in this area. Take shelter now."

I was the only one home other than my animals, so I took Mickey to the lowest, safest spot in our house (didn't even attempting wrangling up the two cats who wouldn't stay put anyway) and I headed to the highest, least safe spot in our house in hopes of spotting the twister.

No twister as I peered out the upper level bathroom window, but I did capture this (plus several other similarly ominous shots):

I waited and waited for a funnel. None arrived in my neighborhood, the danger passed, I let Mickey out of the safe space, and carried on with my day.

No cool story to share about waiting out a tornado with my dog, but I'm happy to have gotten at least a few shots of the wacky weather. And happy a tornado didn't really wander over my way — for I'm pretty sure if one had, I'd regret (and feel forever guilty) that I hadn't wrangled my cats after all.