Day 9 - The Lone Star chase...

We're on the road at 07:00 with a target area of Mineral Wells which is west of Dallas, a 6 hour drive away. Breakfast is on the run from...McDonalds...which get's forced down. We head south on US83, have a pitstop at Wheeler then onto Shamrock for a wander around the historic U Drop Inn Cafe, the restored Art Deco gas station on the old Route 66. 

The SPC has upgraded the tornado risk to 5%, presumably they were waiting for the location of the outflow boundary from yesterday's storms. We continue south on US83.

The long journey continues, south to Childress, east to Quanah then south to Seymour and a stop at the Chicken Express; nice fries but the chicken was mostly batter and the 32oz Diet Coke was just intimidating. We take a further pit stop at Breckenridge then east to Gordon and south on Highway 108. The topography changes and we are surrounded by pretty woodland.The SPC has upgraded its mesoscale discussion to a severe thunderstorm watch.

We head through Stephenson, stock up on some van snacks then a couple of stops to view a decent updraft including at Hico then head east with the outflow boundary clearly visible on radar.

We continue past Lake Whitney then stop at Hillsboro. The cells where we are don't look too promising and a severe warned storm has blown up to out north west, so change of plan and we're off north on Highway 171 to intercept.

We find a vantage point on the crest of a hill on US67 between Nemo and Cleburne and there in front of us is a the only severe warned storm in our area with a nicely defined wall cloud. After the mammoth drive today it felt like the storms gods were playing with us - finally a break. We stopped here for a while, the storm gently tightening up into an amazing structure, a boundary passed over us and the air became sticky, the storm going east and the boundary going west collided giving extra impetus. Finally it started raining so time to call it a day not before Reed Timmer in one of the Dominators had wizzed past.

We went to for dinner at Pastafina, an Italian restaurant in Cleburne. The pizza sizes were translated into actual sizes by the nice young waitress: Personal, small, medium and large. I optimistically go for the small, Rory despite my best advice goes for a medium, and of course when it turns up it is...ENORMOUS. He manages half of it, the rest for some point in the future.

When we leave the restaurant the skies are an amazing sight, almost like an impressionist painting and when we arrive at our hotel for the night, La Quinta at Cleburne, the sky is now under lit by the setting sun eventually checking out in an amazing shade of pink.

Total miles: 

Day 8 - Refreshed...and once more into the marginal breach...

Well that was the best night's sleep ever in the most comfortable bed of all time.

This morning we're off at 08:00 and had breakfast at Lubbock's Breakfast House and Grill. The breakfast looked great and worthy of a photo but the bacon and toast were crunchy and the hash browns underdone. It still mostly got scoffed.

We're off north in the direction of south eastern Colorado on I27 via Amarillo for yet another marginal risk. Storms that do fire will head south east during the course of the day and we're booked into a hotel in Perryton in northern Texas tonight. Tomorrow (rubs eyes in disbelief) we (currently...) have an enhanced risk in north eastern Texas and just north of the Dallas Fort Worth metro region...there is a 2% tornado risk. Wowzer! The peak season of May was a real dud and the first half of June has been fairly quiet. The second half of June looks good, no doubt we'll chase some storms via live streams on YouTube when we are back home...It's 10:30 and we're just south of Happy. Actually we're both fairly chipper this morning.

We get to Amarillo and go to the Jack Sizemore RV museum which has moved since I was last here. It's full of cool bikes, cars, trailers and recreational vehicles going back decades; some were barn finds in as new condition and others have been lovingly restored as if they have just left the factory. There's cool stuff at every turn including two El Caminos (more Breaking Bad references) and a stunning 1963 Chevy Corvette Stingray, the type used by the Apollo astronauts as their runarounds. I want one.

We stop at Walmart for picnic provisions then to Starbucks for a coffee, then continue north. The SPC have raised the risk level to slight which is a good thing. It's now lunchtime and today's picnic location is Stratford in the far north of the Texas Panhandle. The large bag of monster size cheesy puffs has now liberated its orangeness which now all over the place. Speaking of orangeness, Donald J Trump has just been indicted...and we'll be driving down a stretch of road named after him.It will be interesting to see how this develops. 

We head north through the Texas Panhandle, a flatter stretch of land you will not see, and a heathy luscious green given how much rain there has been here. We cross into the Oklahoma Panhandle and the topography changes in short order, the verdant grassland is behind us and the ground is now undulating with small hillocks and rocky outcrops; this no man's land was assimilated into Oklahoma in the early 19th century, was badly affected by the dust bowl of the 1930"s and is the setting for John Steinbeck's novel the Grapes of Wrath.

As we head through the Oklahoma Panhandle fluffy clouds are bubbling up to our west indicating the location of the dryline boundary; dew points are low on the west side, around 39f with mid 50s on our side indicating the higher levels of moisture and the SPC has issued a mesoscale discussion. We pass the sign welcoming us to Wonderful Colorado.

We have a pitstop in Springfield then head west through Pritchett on US160. It's now 15:30 and there are a couple of other chasers about. The SPC update for tomorrow has expanded the enhanced risk area and significantly expanded the 2% tornado risk area; there's also talk of 6000 J/KG CAPE tomorrow. Say what?!?. A CG sparks off in front of us.

We continue down US160 to near Kim and stop by a huge puddle full of tadpoles, with a large ants nest near by and some type of animal burrow. The storms are getting going now and there are several CG strikes. We need to move as the storm is nearly upon us so we retreat east and stop again just south west of Pritchett by an abandoned house. Wow, what a photo opportunity as we are now under the anvil surrounded by mammatus clouds. The outflow kicks up huge amounts of dust so we stop again for more photos. 

We head back to Springfield for a quick pit stop then south back towards Campo to get near another storm that is starting to strengthen. We have a quick stop then into Loves in Boise City in the Oklahoma Panhandle for a Subway and get a great view of some CG. The storm weakens and it's time to leave for our hotel. Just as we enter Texas a huge plume of dust with tumbleweed crosses the road. It's now 20:45 and we should be at our hotel by 22:00 ready for a very early start and a 6 hour journey towards Dallas and tomorrow's enhanced risk. Tonight's storms and associated outflow boundary will have a big say in what happens, we wait the musings of the SPC in the morning.

We arrive at the Baymont Hotel in Perryton tired and ready for bed. What Rory didn't need was to open the Suburban's door and have the world's largest bug land on his head from apparently nowhere; he uttered an unimaginable stream of expletives and ran like a lunatic round the hotel car park. Funny doesn't do it justice, I'll still be laughing about it tomorrow. Oh, and I won the "guess the mileage" competition getting it spot on :o)

Total miles: 543

    

Day 7 - Emergency Room to Luxury Room...

Well today was a funny sort of a day.

We've just arrived at the brand new La Quinta hotel in Lubbock, Texas and a very well appointed room; Rory is currently glued to the Scientology channel on TV...

Storms were expected around San Antonio, Texas and the SPC had upgraded to a slight risk. As it happens the storms that did fire were messy and fluffed out by 16:00, so just as well we never actually made it there. A "can't be helped" visit to the ER took up the morning but thankfully everything turned out fine. The very friendly and amazingly efficient staff at Kindle Hospital sorted things out in very short order including a CAT scan, x-ray, blood and urine tests, IV and meds. Outstanding service, no wait or hanging around. 

Breakfast was skipped and we had lunch at the Isaack Restaurant in Junction, Texas which was pretty good. We got on the road mid-afternoon on what had turned into a repositioning day for tomorrow's slight risk, probably in south eastern Colorado.

So it was up the good ol' US83 and a stop at the slightly unkempt Garden of Eden at Eden and pit stops at Ballinger (and non-standard Snickers) and Snyder before arriving at Lubbock. 

Dinner was at JJB Chophouse & Brew Co. Despite the very large onsite brewhouse and interesting beer range I wussed out and had water. The food was very good, Rory polished off chicken and chips with a side salad, I had a chicken strips salad; I eventually ate my way to the bottom of the plate but just couldn't finish it. This was in an interesting part of Downtown Lubbock on Buddy Holly Avenue, just round the corner from the Buddy Holly Centre. 

Total miles: 341