Epilogue

I spent at least a week prior to leaving the UK in a state of misery, for the first time in seven visits to the States a death ridge was in charge with chasers cancelling chasecations or putting them off to mid-June. Visions of a sunshine tour with no storms were forefront in my mind.

As usual things, despite the ridge were overblown. Epic days never turn out like advertised, and during a famine there is still plenty to consume:

• ·         A confirmed tornado
• ·         A puzzling “scudnado” with tornado reports
• ·         Dust swirls on the ground – clear air tornado?
• ·         Stunning turbulence and rotating wall clouds
• ·         Amazing structures
• ·         Fantastic sunsets
• ·         Incredible night time display of lightning
• ·         Torrential rain and hailstones
• ·         Celebrity chasers
• ·         Lots of high quality “print huge” photographs taken

The rest has gone past at amazing speed with 9 states visited including 2 new ones,  crossing 17 state lines and travelling almost to the Canadian border, taking my grand total of states visited to a total of 20:

• ·         Oklahoma
• ·         Texas
• ·         New Mexico
• ·         Colorado
• ·         Kansas
• ·         Nebraska
• ·         South Dakota
• ·         North Dakota (New)
• ·         Minnesota (Just and new)

We did some fabulous sightseeing:

• ·         Capulin Volcano
• ·         Mount Rushmore
• ·         The Badlands of South Dakota
• ·         Visited some quirky towns, museums and other attractions
• ·         Visited some great restaurants and cafes and ate some good food (mostly!)

When people ask me” what is storm chasing?” My stock answer is “a great road trip punctuated by storms” and that’s what we had this week in spades. I should really preface that with “exhausting” as I’m completely knackered with a flight back to the UK still to come, the joys of jet lag and a Board review to facilitate on the first day back to work. Hey ho! Cheers Peter and co!

Grand total miles:    3893  (A new record)

I finally got round to totting up the total miles travelled over the seven trips as follows:

2006 – 3202

2008 – 2930

2010 – 3313

2012 – 3162

2014 – 3269

2016 – 3072

2017 – 3893

Grand Total – 22,841