Up for an 08:00 start this morning after a decent night’s
sleep following several bottles of Shiner Bock for dinner…Breakfast was decent
at Dawson’s Family Restaurant, a quick stop at Walmart and we’re heading south
west on US287 towards Amarillo and a possible stop at Palo Duro Canyon, the
second biggest in the USA after the Grand Canyon. That depends on the weather;
it has clouded over and cooled down a bit as we stop at Clarendon for a stretch
of the legs. The Storm Prediction Centre has issued an enhanced risk today with
a 10% tornado risk in the eastern Texas Panhandle the western part of the
Oklahoma Panhandle, western Oklahoma and south western Kansas.
We arrive at Palo Duro and descend into the canyon for a
picnic where it’s 80f. There was a sign on the way in warning against how long
you can stay out in the sun. It starts
at moderate and goes to extreme. Today is only high. On the way there we nearly
collide with a female cyclist who is on the wrong side of the road. We ascend
to the visitors’ area at the highest point for some breath taking views and
take some photos. On the way there we run into the same cyclist who is
stationary but still on the wrong side of the road. Stopping to give her some “advice”
she informs us that she cycles on the wrong side of the road as it’s safer as
she has kids at home…Darwin award in the making. The Facetime phone call home
with the Canyon in the background comes to nought due to the lousy reception.
It takes 20 attempts to make a crackly conventional call but I get through in
the end.
Back to Plan A. It’s gone 13:30 and we head north through
Amarillo on I27 to get into position to intercept some storms heading up from
the south west. It’s now started to rain. After a half hour or so we’re in
amongst the storms with an interesting lowering. We stop just north of
Masterson to let a hail core pass.
We have a quick stop and continue north. A large mess of
storms to our south have cast a huge anvil over us with spectacular mammatus
hanging below; we move into the Oklahoma Panhandle trying to shake it off as it
is putting paid to anything forming under it. There is a discrete severe warned
cell to our north west in Colorado, that’s the one we’re headed to intercept.
We enter Colorado and a new storm has formed to our south
west. We stop in Campo scene of our 2010 triumph. Could lightning strike twice,
literally and metaphorically? No. There’s some great mammatus and therein lies
the problem with the massive anvil stopping supercells forming. It’s a big
mess. We skirt up and down Campo and end
up in Springfield for a quick stop and it’s pretty much game over and time to
head towards our hotel, the Days Inn in Liberal, Kansas with dinner at Ruffino's Italian restaurant. There are a couple of
cells near Lubbock that are tornado warned but up here where the action was
supposed to be…it’s a bust!
Total miles: 494
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