Day 1 - Wet and Wild…and a new mileage record...

 After the tour briefing and a couple of pints of Fat Tire at $8 each we retired to bed looking forward to our long drive to Nebraska in the morning.

Woke up at 06:30 with flashes coming through the net curtain. A quick look at Radarscope and there is a line of three severe warned storms traveling south east just to our south. We get up, pack and head off to breakfast at 07:20. The biscuits and gravy have gone AWOL but the fried potatoes have sneaked onto the menu. A fair trade I think.

As we force down the calories torrential rain starts so we head out under the hotel portico as the last part of the line of storms goes straight over us. Lightning is followed by HUGE booms of thunder and the roads turn into rivers, trucks transform into semi-submersible boats leaving impressive bow waves in their wake. Suddenly violent wind and rain lashes through the portico at incredible speed and we retreat back into the hotel. The poor guy unloading his SUV gets the brunt of it and follows us in, soaked through to the skin. An impressive start to the day, but it delays our 08:00 departure.

We get underway, roads are flooded and some closed leading to a traffic snarl up. Eventually we break on through to the other side, turn left on US270, through Geary and stop off at Watonga for some drinks and snacks. Alex adds two 5-hour Extra Strength Energy drinks to the provisions. This small bottle contains a smorgasbord of stimulants, vitamins and minerals including 2083% RDA of vitamin B12 and enough caffeine to shame 350ml of premium coffee. We’ll try these later. Oh, and we’re booked into the Super 8 tonight in North Platte, Nebraska which will be sometime late tonight.

We set off back on US270 and it soon becomes apparent that the air conditioning is having the day off.  It momentarily splutters in to life but then calls it a day. We continue north on US270, through Woodward and onto Buffalo for a Subway, a foot long beef…when in Rome and all that. US270 merges into US183 as we enter Kansas, the roads suddenly improve dramatically with lovely, soft asphalt and we pass through the small town of Bucklin. Not sure what the folk of Bucklin (pop. 727) do for a living, but the town is immaculately kept in contrast to some we’d been through in Oklahoma.

Shortly after we stop at Mullinville where the late folk sculptor, M. T. Liggett has a display of his art, various metal curiosities lining the fences. Alex gets his first opportunity to deploy the drone, then decides to guzzle his 5 hour energy shot. Seriously, it’s only 13:00 how tired can you be…he’s now surfing on the top of the vehicle. Get down boy! The Yukon is now booked in first thing tomorrow for a mechanic to try and fix the A/C…just top it up with a 5 hour energy shot.

We continue north past Dodge City on US 283 through the flattest land and the biggest skies. Our initial target for today is Oberlin, in the far north west of Kansas with an ETA of around 17:00, perhaps slightly after storm initiation is expected. The parameters look good with a boundary on the Kansas/Nebraska border. We pass through Jetmore, another nicely kept town with an impressive courthouse and some stone built buildings.

Onward to WaKeeney for a pit stop and then west on the I80 to Colby for a quick Starbucks then continue west. It’s 17:30 and we are under a severe thunderstorm watch. I take the first screenshot of the reflectivity radar, but rather irritatingly the ancient third party GPS device attached to the Nikon D800 camera has apparently completely forgotten how to find a satellite to talk to.

There are a couple of storms to our west but they are fairly disorganised and start falling apart. We stop to have a look but there is nothing but cold air on our backs. Huge anvils have spread over the area and have proved quite disruptive. We give up on them and head north on Kansas 27 then 161 into Nebraska.

There is a tornado warned storm way to our north accompanied by an army of chasers. We drive through what is left of our storm and head north towards Imperial and into some sunshine with a full rainbow to our east. It’s now 19:00 with just another 75 minutes until sunset. The storm to our north is no longer tornado warned. We keep going and a small storm pops up to our east. We start to converge on the northern storm which is heading south east in our direction, it’s dark with a wall cloud apparent and a landspout tornado has just been reported.

We finally catch up with the storm and it has been worth the wait. It is game on…we take a right and head east on Highway 6 for a pre-chase bathroom break at Wauneta. This storm is racing south east at 40 knots and there is an 87 knot rotation coming rapidly in our direction so we finish our pit stop in record time - it’s time to go!  We charge off east to get ahead of this amazing storm find a spot to stop. There’s huge amounts of dust flying across the road, the wind making us wish we had put on our jackets. Lightning, “greenage” and fantastic structures appear out of nowhere. Three Silverlining Tours vans fly past and we are right behind them, drop south on US17 stopping to take photos or grabbing some video and a few more shots through an open window as the terrain flies past. The rest of the chasing pack appears to have evaporated.

It’s getting dark now and we head east with a giant hail core on our tail down Highway 36 stopping at Norton. Sonic Burger has just closed so we grab a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of water from a truck stop paying $15 for the privilege…it’s time to head to the Super 8 at North Platte which is over a 100 miles away. The hail core has diminished and we find a gap north, driving for half an hour through heavy rain and intense lightning up US283 to the I80 and it’s a clean run to our hotel arriving at midnight. It’s now time to reacquaint myself with the tedious process of a late night blog upload, downloading photos, picking out a selection to upload, charge batteries etc.

A great day’s chasing.

Total miles: 795 eclipsing the previous record of 773 on day 1 2006.