Contrary to popular opinion, I did not interrupt Rory’s deep slumber by snoring, in fact the reverse was true with a couple of episodes of “sleep talking” including …”yes I think we can do that today” waking me with a jolt.
Slept ok apart from that and was awake at 06:00 with the morning habit: a) Where am I and b) What’s the latest Storm Prediction Centre Outlook? The former is Oklahoma City and the latter looks decent initially, then less certain thereafter.
Today has a slight risk over north west Texas. We’re slightly behind the curve ball (this is a bonus day after all) as we need to pick up Jo Ann from the airport, sort the drivers insurance and then get on the road with a compromised initial target of Wichita Falls which is a couple of hours to our south west. We will head in that direction and see how we get on, in fact the updated tornado risk has drifted north east which helps our cause though the 5% tornado risk is out of reach, we'll play with the 2% north easterly area.
We’ll chill until 13:00 and hopefully will by then have digested the three item breakfast. Rory had cereal (probably a good choice), the OJ was missing in action and the plastic cutlery (complementing the paper plates) had to be prised from a special dispenser. So links sausage, scrambled egg and potatoes had to do.
Friday (tomorrow) and Saturday are spoken for as there will likely be severe weather in a similar area. Friday looks the best with a 5% tornado risk already in place (later upgraded from a slight to enhanced risk with a 30% hatched hail risk), Saturday looks probable too although the SPC has declined to put out a severe warning at this time due to some uncertainty. After that things look quiet synoptically but then so did last week which had repeated storm days. The last three or four days of the tour are slated to be active but that remains to be seen.
We check out and head off to Chili’s for a nice chicken salad then to the airport to pick up Jo Ann. We’ve got the usual Chevy Suburban which had 15 miles on the clock 30 days ago…times that now by 1000.
It’s 14:30 and we’re on the road heading south west (I44) through Chichasha and on to Lawton. We head west on US62 to Altus and a large military airbase with serious numbers of C17 Globemasters, tankers and other hardware. No wonder they don’t have free healthcare quips Rory (defence of the Free World not withstanding). There’s also a pile of cool 50’s cold war missiles and air defence systems on display as well as the City of Altus, a B47 Stratojet strategic bomber.
There’s lots of convection with early storms churning up the atmosphere which doesn’t augur well for daytime heating for later and stronger afternoon and evening storms. We have our first pit stop of the tour, head east towards Childress. It’s raining and Rory spots a couple of CGs. We go through Duke which has some big murals painted on the sides of buildings.
As we pass through Hollis there’s some interesting old buildings including the Busy Corner gas station. Having given up on storms it was off to Wheat’s Artisan Bakery for pizza and onward to the Super 8 for an early night. There’s a gas station across the street so perhaps a couple of beers before bed.
Rather irritatingly the MacBook Air which charged to 100% before we left home steadfastly refuses to charge with USA made electricity perhaps baulking at the whiff of coal. It’s currently on 64%. Hopefully a Walmart cheapo charger will fix the problem (we’ll see tomorrow) otherwise this blog will have to be done on the iPhone, shorter with phone cam pics only. This would be irritating in the extreme.
Total miles: 208
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