Day 4 - We’re off on a bear hunt…

With the sloshing time zone phenomenon successfully navigated we’re ready to go at 07:30 MDT. It’s a misty, grey soup morning and we’re back at Bricks Café. Tiring of the endless bacon based breakfasts…I opt for the sausage instead. These come as patties like sausage burgers; I wish I had stuck with the bacon. Alex is understandably starving having had nothing to eat since our late night bacon cheeseburger. He scoffles a large plate of eggs benedict, hoovers up my spare sausage followed by mine and Cindy’s toast then settles down for a well-earned nap in the Yukon.

We set off west from Goodland on the I70 and have a pit stop at Flagler that has a 1950’s MGM-13 Mace tactical cruise missile as the centrepiece in the Memorial Park. Alex chugs another 5 hour energy drink and is now wide awake; this and excessive eating are a storm chasers version of “uppers and downers”, a slippery slope to be sure. The I70 here is bumpy to say the least, I’ll have to iron out the BITs (Bump Induced Typos) at some point.

We continue west then north west towards Denver. The endless miles hide the upward gradient, it’s hard to digest that we are now a mile above sea level. It’s now warm and sunny. The SPC forecast is marginal tomorrow for parts of the northern Plains and parts of the mid-west with a 2% tornado risk over western Iowa. Sunday has a slight risk over western Nebraska and South Dakota and our last day, Monday, has a slight risk over western South Dakota. On the map these places look cheek by jowl but the reality is in the many hundreds of miles. South Dakota to our Oklahoma City base on Monday is 7-800 miles; doable for sure but sans any chasing, that would not be possible. It will be excessively warm in Oklahoma City with Sunday slated to be 38c, that’s 100f and officially “HOT”.

We approach Denver and get our first sight of the snow covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The South Central map that has sat faithfully in the door pocket is about to be made redundant as we get to the edge and…well that’s it. No more map, I’ll have rely on 21^st century solutions for a while. Traffic is fairly heavy as befits an actual city.

We travel through Boulder and past the Stanley Hotel used for the outside shooting the movie The Shining and onwards to the Rocky Mountain National Park climbing continuously as we go stopping in numerous places for photo opportunities, the snowy vistas and the wildlife – we see white tailed deer, elk, moose, marmot and chipmunks. As we climb the altitude thins and I start feeling lightheaded maxing out at 12,200 feet. It’s a very odd feeling wearing shorts and a T-shirt while walking through snow. Much hilarity ensues as we try to stop ourselves having an embarrassing gravitational anomaly…A quick stop at the restroom and gift shop and we commence our decent through Hot Sulphur Springs stopping to soak up the scenery and spot another two mooses. Descending to 8,500 feet I start feeling a bit more normal but soon we’re going back up passing 11,000 feet and my ears pop…again. Next are the hairpin turns of the Berthoud Falls Cascades before passing through Empire and connecting with the I70 interstate. A thoroughly entertaining excursion – storm chasing is a great road trip punctuated by storms.

Apologies reader(s) as that’s as far as I got yesterday writing the blog. The trip up to 12,200 feet left me feeling quite queasy. Dinner was at MTN Prime in Idaho Springs, a nice little town off the I70 west of Denver. Alex and I both ordered the MTN Prime sandwich, beef, sautéed onion and...lots of cheese in a bun served with beer battered chips washed down with Mycenary IPA which apparently is 9.5% percent. Super tasty all round but one bite in and knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish it. Sadly it wasn’t exactly inexpensive either. We head east into Denver then north on the I25 to Fort Collins, to the Days Inn and straight to bed for a fitful and nausea filled night’s sleep.

Total miles: 464