I’m glad we set the radio alarm clock in the Super 8 hotel room as insurance against the sloshing time zone boundary; it fails to go off, my phone is on CDT and Alex’s is on MDT. Somehow we are ready to go on time at 08:00. Or is that 07:00?.
Breakfast this morning is at the Bricks Café in Goodland.
Alex and I have the bacon, eggs and hash browns which are good. The café is run
by a guy from El Salvador and has something called Pupusas on the menu which
Cindy orders. It comes with a sauce, Alex tries some…TOO SPICEY! After a quick
snap of the giant Van Gogh Sunflowers and we’re on our way.
We’re already under a slight risk and bang in the middles of
a 2% tornado risk so there’ll be no mammoth drive today. We’ve got time to kill
so after a quick Walmart stop we head off to the Prairie Museum of Art and
History at Colby, Kansas. The museum contains also sorts of historical
artefacts including many from the 20th century residing within what
appears to be a concrete tornado proofed building. Outside there are a number
of historical buildings including a sod house from the 1880s and the Cooper
Barn, the largest barn in Kansas that was transported in one piece from Breton
16 miles away.
We have a quick Starbucks in Colby then a photo opportunity
of a large bronze statue of Buffalo Bill by the Buffalo Bill Cultural and
Visitor Centre in Oakley, Kansas. We then head south on US83, down a dirt road
to Monument Rocks which are interesting, chalk deposits laid down by an ancient
sea in the Cretaceous period and subsequently eroded over millennia leaving
buttes and an archway with fossilised sea shells embedded in the rock and
starlings nesting high up in big groups, the young popping their heads out for
some…whatever they eat…
We head off to the gift shop and as we park up Alex hears a
hissing noise…the rear right tyre is no longer the same shape as the rest – we
have a flat. As it’s a hire vehicle roadside assistance are called, who are not
particularly helpful. We eat our picnic lunch, both having selected the walnut
and cranberry salad which gets forced down. I also got some strawberries; they
look good but are not a patch on tucking into some sweet, juicy English fruit ys
a couple of fossilised sharks’ teeth and it’s time to try and change the large
tyre ourselves. It’s not straightforward as the hire company have helpfully
removed the manual…a few YouTube videos later and we’ve figured it out. We’re
now heading off looking for a tyre repair place in Scott City.
We arrive at Scott City and head to Great Western Tire.
“Tire” is the US spelling of “Tyre” BTW. There had been a lot of vibration from
the front wheels over the last few days. It turns out that the inner tread on
the front two tyres was abnormally worn due to some problem with the tracking.
One was so threadbare that the rubber was completely worn away in places even
though the tread on the outside looked totally normal. The technician was
pretty concerned, so we got that tyre replaced as well as getting the puncture
on the rear fixing. Perhaps the puncture was a blessing in disguise as having
that worn tyre blow out on the interstate doesn’t bear thinking about. The folk
at Great Western Tire get us sorted out in double quick time, and typical of
people on the Plains are super friendly. We chat about tornadoes that they have
seen in the local area including one that went straight past the garage in
1976. Alex and I are presented with a branded baseball cap each which we are
currently wearing with pride.
We get done and back on the road by 16:30 and head west on
Kansas 26 towards Colorado. There’s a bit of blue sky bursting through the
cloud and things are bubbling up west of us, golden highlight in the distance.
While we were dealing with the tyre excitement the SPC upgraded the tornado
risk to 5% in NW Kansas, NE Colorado and south central Nebraska. There’s plenty
of time left in the day and the storms will come to us.
We head into Colorado and then north onto US385 stopping for
a “leg stretcher” at Cheyenne Wells and a can of double expresso. Towers are
starting to appear to our north so that’s where we head. It’s warmer and
brighter.
We get most of the way to Burlington and stop on the US385.
A storm is drifting towards us and becomes severe warned. It’s not massive but
has a reasonably defined base and is producing some cloud to ground (CG)
lightning. Alex deploys the drone and takes some video. A number of other
chasers turn up, it starts to rain so we head back south to a drier vantage
point for a few more snaps. Soon after it becomes outflow dominant and falls
apart.
There’s a line of storms to our north east so we head east
down US40 but end up driving through them as they disappear south east. There’s
some mammatus clouds and a few decent CG strikes but that’s the end of the
chase. We head north to Colby, the sit down food places have closed as it’s
after 21:00 so Alex and I both have a ready wrapped truck stop bacon cheese
burger which honestly was not bad. We’ve got a six pack of Bud for the room and
we’re back at this morning’s hotel at Goodland.
Today’s 5% tornado risk came to nought, there were a few
severe warned storms from Nebraska to Oklahoma but that’s it, and that’s
chasing. It’s been an odd sort of day to be fair but we did chase and had some
fun.
Tomorrow there are storms in Arkansas but it’s a morning
affair so they are way out of reach. Instead we will be heading west into
Colorado, a four hour drive, to north west of Denver to go to Rocky Mountain
National Park which looks amazing. As well as forests, lakes and mountains it
also has wildlife including…BEARS!!!
Total miles: 417
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