The Badlands, Heatstroke and a Tornado

We took a drive to Badlands National Park yesterday. It was HOT there, about 102 but dry with a slight breeze. Went through the visitor center and then drove the 20 mile loop road and stopped along the way.
While marveling at the landscape we noticed that the sky to our right was becoming increasingly dark, darker than then the now usual hail/thunderstorm. I kept driving through to Wall at which point we put on the radio and heard the national weather service warning that there is a tornado warning in our immediate area.
Wall looked ripe for a weather chasers team, the sky was pitch dark and you could see very strong winds picking up in the distance. I got right back on the highway going west. From the look of the sky we were going in the right direction, AWAY from the storm...
I was wrong. About an hour after we got back to the campground, the tornado warnings were announced here. Vinny was really scared until a boy he met at the pool told him that South Dakota tornadoes are pretty weak and only lift you about a foot off the ground! That seemed to work. He ran happily off to the evening movie (indoors). In the meanwhile nobody seemed to be doing anything different than usual here other than closing the pool.
Isabel and I decided to try to make dinner in the sheltered kitchen area. Within minutes the thunder and lightning moved in. It was really intense and LOUD. The wind picked up, the sky grew very dark and (once again) large hail started shooting down. All of this by the way, happened super fast. We covered our heads and ran to the car and drove across the road to the building where Vinny was. The roads and parking lots were flash flooding. The water was moving up to the top of the car wheels. I sat in the movie theater soaking wet for about 10 minutes and went back out to find the sky totally clear! The man at the desk said the tornado skirted us and had passed through.
After that the campground activities were over for the night. I met women in the laundry room from Alaska, Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, Ohio and Michigan (uh oh Laura!), each having their own extreme weather story to share.