COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Southern Swing is in the books and while we are still clearing out the notebooks and pushing a few last stories here and there, the suitcases have been put away until the next time and the car has been unloaded.

Often times, one of the most anticipated parts of Southern Swing is talking about what happened behind the scenes. These conversations are often limited to face-to-face meetings as many of the stories may be a little too rowdy for publication or just make for a better story over a meal or beverage.

So, if you are looking for the latest on a certain recruit, this story may not be for you and you will be better suited to jump into one of our numerous updates from the road. This story is more of a chance to unload some of the weird, funny and odd stories from the road that happen when you leave home for two weeks and visit 11 states over that period.

Southern Swing Stories

We will start this run of stories with the scariest of the trip and probably the longest and most detailed story as it will remain vivid in our memories for as long as we do these types of trips.

While we try and plan every last detail on these types of trips, there are plenty of things that we cannot plan. Weather is one of the biggest.

Before the trip started, there was a conversation between Marc and a member of the Rivals.com national staff about where our travels would take us, namely up through Oklahoma and Kansas. This unnamed staff member seemed genuinely excited when he said, "You might even get to see a tornado". And that was a point of excitement for this staff member. Marc tried his best to shrug it off and later confided with me that he wanted to punch him for even bringing up such a notion.

Fast forward to week two of the trip as we were leaving Tulsa (Okla.) to head to Wichita (Kan.) to be in place to speak with Marcus Hicks. We stopped in Tulsa and had a good BBQ dinner and started to make the drive west and then north toward our destination. We had not quite made it to I-35 yet as we could see some lightning in the sky.

I said, "Oh, it is probably just heat lightning" as I tried to talk Marc down from being worried. I pulled out my phone and called up a weather app and realized that it was not heat lightning, it was real lightning, and we were getting ready to get pelted by storms.

The good thing about being out in the middle of nowhere is the ability to really see how hard you can push a rental car. Our poor Nissan Rogue had no idea what she was in for that night. 80 miles per hour turned to about 95 miles per hour as we were racing to get to I-35 and start our trek north.

We made it to the interchange with the interstate and of course everything was under construction and there was a detour that took us south, not north, to start our journey as the first sheets of rain started to fall.

Of course, by this time too, the last twinges of dusk had disappeared for the night and it was dark out, quite dark with very little civilization to speak of in this part of the country. A part of the country known as Tornado Alley.

We finally made our way back North and knew that there was no avoiding the storms. We were just going to be safe, try and keep the speeds down and Marc was going to take over the duties as the in-car meteorologist as I would focus solely on the road.

Another decision was made to turn off the satellite radio and turn on the regular radio in case an emergency broadcast alert was to be sounded. That only took about 15 minutes before that happened and things went from DEFCON-3 to DEFCON-2 and nerves started to emerge as we were in the middle of nowhere and none of our loved ones really knew where we were. We barely knew where we were.

The rain started coming down like someone opened a faucet and the wind started to push the car all over the road. Then the hail started. We had made it as far as the outskirts of Braman (Okla.) and we needed to get off the road. Immediately.

We took the first off-ramp that we could find, and to our chagrin, there was no town there. There was nothing there. We managed to find a farm and pulled into their 'equipment storage area' and decided to wait out the storm there.

We said there for what felt like hours but likely was only 10-15 minutes. Marc noticed that about a mile or two up the interstate there was a truck stop (and casino, every gas station in northern Oklahoma seemed to have a casino attached). That meant that we could get the car under cover and find shelter if something serious happened.

The two-mile journey from the storage area to the gas station was uneventful as the storm calmed down a little bit and we managed to find a pump with no car in it and we pulled under cover, feeling somewhat safer that the car was not exposed, and we had lights and people around us.

As we were sitting there, a truck pulled up and a guy from the area emerged and he looked just as frazzled as we were. He said that he was coming down from Wichita, our destination' and told us how bad the storms were up there. He said that he needed to sit for a bit too as he was heading south.

At this point, Marc decided that he needed a soda and to stretch his legs and was going to make a break for the convenience store. I told him that I would sit with the car and continued talking to the driver of the truck.

Marc walked into the store and saw nobody up front, at the registers or in the casino. They were all huddled in the back corner in what would have to be presumed the most 'secure' area of the story in case of a storm.

"What is going on here?" Marc asked.

"It's a surprise party for you," said a truck driver who was part of the 30-40 people amassed in that grouping in the corner of the store near the restrooms and stock room.

"I have a guy out in the car, should I go and get him?" Marc asked.

"I would," said the truck driver.

Just as Marc was about to turn around and tell myself and our new friend to get out of our cars and get inside the building, an employee emerged and sounded the all-clear.

According to the workers at the store, there was a tornado touch-down within three miles of the store. They did not say in which direction.

We were stopped about two miles away from the store to the south just 20 minutes earlier.

Sobering.

Marc asked what we should do, we still needed to get to Wichita at some point. There were no hotels in the area and the idea of a hotel room, at some point that night, was important.

I ended up going in and buying a six-pack of beer and placed it in the back seat. I told Marc, "I am going to need a couple of these when we finally reach our destination".

We were told to wait about 20-30 minutes before heading out, that the worst cell should pass, and we would have a small window to try and make it the rest of the way to Wichita.

That weather app was front-and-center on both of our phones and we decided about 20 minutes in that our best window was here and we left the safety of our truck stop haven and made our way north.

The break in the storm never really happened. The wind was bad, the rain was heavy, and we kept watching a storm that we hoped would change direction, even a little bit, never really change direction.

The miles ticked off and we got closer and closer to where we needed to be.

Along the way, we found out that Kansas is a tollway state and we needed to get stop and get a ticket upon entering the state and when we made it into the outskirts of Wichita and got off of I-35.

In the last 10 miles before reaching one of the outer belts, the rain started to break and while the roads were still wet, the rain falling from the sky had fallen to a drizzle.

We made it to the one open toll booth that was occupied by a toll worker and were third in line. We had cheated Mother Nature and were only 15 miles from our hotel. We just needed to pay our toll and get on our way.

The U-Haul at the front of the line had other ideas. We sat there for 10 minutes or more while the toll worker and the drive of this U-Haul either argued, or shared baking secrets or recited "The Art of War" to one another. Whatever it was, I was losing my mind. There were cars behind me, there was a car in front of me (between the U-Haul and myself) and there was nowhere to go.

Just as the U-Haul driver finally handed money over to the toll worker, the rain started again. In heavy doses. The small window of time that would have allowed us to get to the hotel had passed and were back in 'wet hell' once again.

We finally made it to the hotel (after getting off of the interstate because our exit was closed, only to have to get back on due to no good detour to get there) and that cheap domestic beer never tasted so good.

So, when someone acts excited that you might 'see a tornado' on your journeys, you have our permission to punch them square in their gut.

The way the trip ended, I had to fly back to Nashville to pick up our first week car and drive it back to Ohio (one-way rentals are just outrageous and even with the travel fund, I could not allow myself to waste that kind of money).

I land in Nashville and was going to drive as far as Bowling Green (Ky.) because it was a late night and I did not want to make the whole drive late at night after 14 days of travel. I look to the skies as I get into the car and lightning is lighting up the Nashville sky.

I look at the weather app and 'here we go again' as the storms are moving in. I could understand this in 'Tornado Alley' but this was not supposed to be the case here.

I made it as far as Portland (Tenn.) and was forced to get off the highway once again as the hail started to fall. Back to a gas station (this one did not have a casino) and under cover, hiding from a cruel Mother Nature.

This detour was only about 10 minutes long as I stared at the weather app and saw that there was a small window for me to haul north on I-65 and once I got north of the state line into Kentucky, the weather should break.

Fortunately for my tired and frazzled nerves, this prayer was answered. Within 15 minutes, the rainfall stopped, but that did not stop an impressive electrical storm just to my west that lit up the sky all the way to Bowling Green.

We will definitely have to put some thought into visiting Oklahoma and Kansas during Southern Swing moving forward, at least when it comes to when we are going to try and make these drives.

Tomorrow: The people you meet at TSA & Bear Crossings