When I first ventured over to the States in 2006 for my first chasing tour, life was relatively simple and straightforward, technology was fairly basic and any associated frustrations were met with a shrug of the shoulders. Believe it or not there was life before smartphones and the internet, when kids would “play out” and return home for tea at “teatime”, which was when hunger trumped playing with your friends.
So in 2006 the only place I could get cell coverage was in the Oklahoma City metro and that was it…no texts or calls home and data was just a concept, it never worked; the mobile phone was left in the bag. I did make calls home at the same time each morning (to confirm I was still in one piece) using a basic laptop, slow WiFi which was only available in the hotel lobby, a cheapo wired headphone with microphone and Skype…Voice Over IP (“VOIP”) was the future. Rural internet speeds are still terrible, what happened to the $44b that was supposed to sort this out?
The blog back then was very basic, I wrote it in a notebook on the hoof then typed it directly into the blog online and left a handful of photos to upload overnight…and they were massive 6mp basic Jpegs; leave it running and it was all done (well mostly) when you woke up. No fretting over the SPC back then, and my GPS map was an 1:1000,000 OS map with the route traced in highlighter pen, a habit I can’t shrug off.
Cash was king, a big wedge of green currency and a money belt was all you needed. If you needed a cab or a courtesy bus to the airport hotel reception would sort it out. No apps, no Apple Pay required, paper boarding cards were issued when you checked in at the airport.
Today things are nominally much easier and most things are in the palm of your hand. This blog is a piece of cake to do and passes the time while we’re cruising down the interstate. But when it goes wrong you’re left desperately looking for your paddle. There’s also an expectation that everyone is a tech wizard and can navigate endless layers of menus and so on, if you’re not then best of luck, you’re on your own.
Not that many years ago if you wanted move the drivers car seat you pulled a lever and slid up and down until it felt right. Now you press a memory button and it eventually grinds to wherever you had it programmed. But not in my car as the memory function no longer works and no one can fix it, pressing the various buttons takes forever and it now shows signs of not wanting to work at all and then what?
The Jeep Wagonner has more tech than you can shake a stick at including 16 USB-A and C ports to meet the needs of 2025. The front seats have heating, cooling, a massage function and more seating positions than you could ever explore in a lifetime. A quick play and the front passenger seat is now stuck in business class recline mode and it’s beyond any of us how to put it back to sitting mode.
Breakfast is at the Common Good in Denver and it is probably the poshest I’ve been to in all the years I’ve been chasing. Fantastic breakfast and service and it most certainly will be added to the Encyclopaedia Breakfasticus. Breakfast was later than anticipated due to a car park tech meltdown. The “meter” didn’t take cash and required an app to be downloaded then a credit card lodged against it. None worked, eventually requiring contortions involving Google Pay. If you didn’t have a smartphone there was a number to call…with what type of phone, a 1970’s style carphone or what? 20 minutes that took and all for $2.
The SPC updated the previous day 2 forecast just after midnight for today and upgraded the tornado risk from 2% to 5%, moving it further north so bringing it much closer to our start point. Post breakfast we’re heading south east on i70 to our target of Tribune in western Kansas and our eventual days end at a hotel in Dodge City. A pit stop at Limon and we’re back on our way down US287; It’s just gone 10:00 but feels like mid-afternoon as we’re mostly still on Blighty time. It’s getting on for 11:00 and we head south at Kit Carson towards Eads.
We stop at Eads and have lunch a small place called JJ’s. Nice waitress and it’s mostly toasted cheese and fries all round. We head east on Colorado 96 towards Tribune.
Today’s forecast is somewhat nebulous with divergence between models; Tribune will be a jumping off point on a “wait and see basis”. Storms are slated to break out mid-afternoon, hopefully forming discrete supercells before merging into a squall line in the evening. It’s currently 12:30 but will jump an hour forward when we get to Kansas. Tornadoes are certainly possible.
It’s now 13:15 Mountain and we’re under a tornado watch. We head south towards Syracuse. As we approach Syracuse traffic cones are all over the place. Unlike back home this means people are actually working on the road. Sure enough we get held up by a large crew resurfacing the road which takes some time to clear.
We head south towards Johnson to intercept a now severe warned storm. It's 15:45 Central.
We get in front of it and stop for some snaps before doing an about turn, head north then east at Johnson City, then south on farm road 1. There’s some CG lightning, but not much else going on and the storm we were on starts to fall apart so we head north to back to Syracuse, then head west on US400 to intercept a severe warned storm Reed Timmer described as a “long term tornado producer” (spoiler alert: it wasn't"); we shall see. It’s 16:50 Mountain and we are being hit by hail which twangs as it hits the Jeep.
We stop at the Kansas-Colorado border and take some snaps, an old house and an updraft on what is now a line of storms. We have a pit stop in Granada. Reed's storm is still going and severe warned but is not doing much. We have a stop east of Holly, there's a few flashes of lightning but it's time to go. We head through Syracuse for the last time, at least for today and head to Garden City where we'll have dinner at Old Chicago Pizza and Tap room. I had a nice salad with chicken, bacon and blue cheese and Rory a burger washed down with some 7% IPAs from an extensive beer list.
We checked into La Quinta on Wyatt Earp Boulevard at about 22:00 and we're both sparko shortly thereafter after a looong 15 hour day.
Today under performed against the forecast, there was too much cold air about. There was one tornado warned storm to our south in the Oklahoma panhandle but that didn't produce.
Total miles: 529
2 comments:
I thought the Texican was mandatory in Denver!
We were just reminiscing about that yesterday lol
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