Last night we ended up in Logan’s, for dinner which wasn’t
where it should have been as we were clearly parked next to the Pony strip
club. Eventually we get to the right place and we’re asked if we’re here for
the Ronald McDonald convention… I order a 22oz Samuel Adam’s which apparently
doesn’t qualify as a locally brewed beer and so attracts a price premium. Lexie
the waitress, who must have been no more than 22 fixes me with a stare and asks
if I have any ID. Huh? ID for what? For
age!!! I don’t have any ID with me and am fighting a raging thirst. “I need to
speak to my manager” says Lexie. “We have to ask anyone who looks under 40 for
ID”. Ok, looking under 21 would have been ideal, but I’ll take what I can get.
Lexie and I agree it’ll be our little secret and the beer duly arrives “I’ll
fetch the alcohol” being her parting remark. The steak was pretty good though I
didn’t realise that when I ordered the peppercorn sauce it would come on the
side salad…
Back to the hotel to load up the blog. Not tonight Josephine
so slow was the Wifi. I had to disable the laptop’s sleep mode and it uploaded
overnight. A mistimed call from a cricket coach back home has me wide awake at
06:00 so I get up. A quick look at the SPC has a 5% tornado probability south
and east of here but the days after that look lean in the extreme. A quick look
on my blog stats has the hits rocketing into single figures.
This morning we have a nice breakfast at the Cross Eyed
Cricket in Evansville. This place is a big city yet only has a population of
120,000. I guess you spread out when land is freely available. A quick
Starbucks and we’re off on…a road…to somewhere. Damned maps.
We enter Kentucky, yet another new state. No sign of any
blue grass, derbies (derr-bees) or bourbon distilleries, at least not in the
first mile though we do pass Ellis Park shortly afterwards.
We head south and east (I think) as tornado watchess are
issued for the target area; the rain of this morning has been left behind and
we’re into warmer air. Looks like we’ll have a decent crack of the whip today
apart from one thing: trees. Chasers really don’t like heading east as forested
areas are everywhere obscuring the view which as you can imagine can be really
dangerous as a tornado can come out of nowhere and really ruin your day. Today
we’ll need to stay on main roads to guarantee a good cell signal so that our
radar images regularly refresh and we know what’s going on; a bit like flying
on instruments. We need to stay safe at
all costs.
Apparently we’re on I65 heading east as I write this on our
way to Edmonton where we’ll have a review of what’s next. We’ve just passed the
National Corvette Museum which recently lost 5 of its priceless collection to a
sink hole. A shear marker has now appeared on a cell to our east indicating
rotation. This is a good thing which is more than can be said for my buttocks
which are not enjoying the shift in the back of the Suburban. God help you if
you’re built like a silverback gorilla. Feels like sciatica so I’m invalided
back into the middle seats. We then pass Knob Lick, I kid you not – apparently
it’s a ghost town, I can’t imagine why everyone moved out.
We drive round and round and round Edmonton and get a few
forks of lightning before the weather descends into a horrible, messy, wet,
hopeless pile of (insert appropriate profanity). There was a comical moment when Leslie and Lisa's hair started to stand on end. I can assure you we set a new world record getting back in to the SUV! There were tornadoes reported in Ohio which, even by our standards, is way off in the distance. Ironically there were reports of funnel clouds back in the UK, which also happened when I came here in 2006. You can't make this stuff up!
We set off south in the pouring rain towards Nashville, Tennessee, our 9th state with the moral boosting Dead Kennedys (slightly incongruous given our location) filling the headphones, where we’re booked into the Days Inn. Looks like an early start tomorrow, a short trip round Nashville, then a long drive back west, through Tennessee and likely onwards through Arkansas into Texas. A visit to Wendy's and a nibble on a less than gorgeous burger was all the enthusiasm a tired crew could muster and it's early back to the hotel.
Never mind running out of maps, I've now run out of fingers with which to count the states. Outside chance of something in Texas, even something in Colorado at the end of the trip, but the big day, Sunday, is now well behind us.
No photos today, none taken!
We set off south in the pouring rain towards Nashville, Tennessee, our 9th state with the moral boosting Dead Kennedys (slightly incongruous given our location) filling the headphones, where we’re booked into the Days Inn. Looks like an early start tomorrow, a short trip round Nashville, then a long drive back west, through Tennessee and likely onwards through Arkansas into Texas. A visit to Wendy's and a nibble on a less than gorgeous burger was all the enthusiasm a tired crew could muster and it's early back to the hotel.
Never mind running out of maps, I've now run out of fingers with which to count the states. Outside chance of something in Texas, even something in Colorado at the end of the trip, but the big day, Sunday, is now well behind us.
No photos today, none taken!
Day 4 – Total miles: 416
1 comment:
A beer named after you, being asked for ID for looking under 40 and new states visited. Just another average day then.
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