Update Archive

Archive 5/9 - 5/15/2005:
5/9/2005 - Altogether we drove 269 miles today. It was a travel day, we’re moving to where the action is. The drive took us from Kansas into Nebraska. Another state!! WooHoo!
We went to the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas. The property is on the National Register of Historic Places… and for good reason. This place is amazing. Over 113 tons of concrete were used by Samuel P. Dinsmoor to create all of the sculptures. Even some of the window sills are made of concrete. He started his creation in 1905 at the age of 64. He turned his home into a tourist attraction in 1908 and continued building until his death in 1933.
Next we stopped at the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas. Frank Stoeber started wrapping the ball of twine on his farm in 1953; he gave it to Cawker City in 1961. The Ball is now over 40 ft around, weighs over 17,690 pounds, and contains over 7,079,690 feet of sisal baler twine. Part of the attraction is that they provide twine for you to add to the ball. We added 3 pounds of twine, over 1,300 feet!
We ran into another group of chasers that are well known to our guides. Everyone was telling stories about chases they’d been on together. It was great.
5/10/2005 - We drove 217 miles today. We spent most of the day in the sunny and warm parking lot of the AmericInn waiting for storms to develop so we could go watch them. Several other chaser groups were there as well, so there were some hi-jinks. Around 6’ish we headed out to watch a developing storm front. It didn’t really produce anything so we watched it for a while and then headed back to check into a hotel… just so happens we’ll be staying in the same hotel as last night. After we checked in and dropped off our bags we went to meet for dinner and ended up heading out to see the recently developed severe weather just down the road. We saw several land spouts and the other van even drove through one. We followed the storm for a few hours but no tornado… great lightening and some hail. It was a good day.
5/11/2005 - We drove 522 miles today. During the chase we crossed over the Kansas – Nebraska border 4 times today… I don’t remember how many times we crossed time zones. We arrived in Garden City, KS around 11:30PM CST.
5/12/2005 - We drove 507 today. And what a day it was. We hit the jackpot near South Plains, TX. We stopped on the side of the road and watch what looked like a potential tornado, which didn’t pan out then drove a bit. We headed back to where we were before and I saw my first live and in person tornado. It was amazing. It’s like they are a living entity and you watch it form and grow. It’s unbelievable. It crossed the road in front of us so we moved over to see it better. As we drove down the side road the hail started. It was huge hail!! The sound of it hitting the metal truck was deafening. There was a ton of rain and the winds were fierce. Our windshield was cracked in three places. The other van lost its back, side window and the windshield was trashed, windshield wipers broken. Apparently we were actually in the rotation of the tornado for a few minutes. I have to say, ignorance is bliss. I had no idea how close we were or what kind of danger that could have turned into. John assured us that they don’t usually get that close to the tornados… it just happened this time. I’m so glad I wasn’t driving!
After we left the area we met up with some of the other chasers and saw some of their vehicle damage. Wow… A lot of people will be having glass replaced tomorrow!
You just have to check out these links:
This is the Cloud9 website… fantastic video (click on May 12th): http://www.cloud9tours.com/bear/2005/index.html
George Kourounis is the driver of the other van: http://www.stormchaser.ca/2005/Chase_2005.html
Here is some video taken by another chaser group (click on 20034-2005 Storm Chase Accounts): http://www.psphoto.com/
5/13/2005 - Stayed in Amarillo, TX today while the van glass is being repaired. We all kind of did our own thing and then met up to watch a super cell forming in the distance. After that we drove over to the Big Texas for dinner. What a neat place - lots of taxidermy on the walls. The food was great and the deserts were huge. They serve a 72 oz steak that you get for free if you can finish it in an hour. Three guys from Australia tried and failed. They looked miserable as they sat there trying to stuff salad, a baked potato, a roll and 72 oz of steak down (of course, not all at once). Ugh. After dinner we headed to Patti’s room to try some of Ray’s Serbian Rakija (very good and strong... 95 proof!) and then watched Meet the Fockers. It was yet another good day.
5/14/2005 - 315 miles today. We drove from Amarillo, TX to Shawnee, OK. There isn’t much brewing weather-wise so we’re going to hang out here for a few days. Charles and his wife Lori had us all over for burgers and hotdogs. We watched a bunch of video footage from the 12th, and lots of really cool footage from prior years. We also watched some of George’s hurricane footage. Good times.
5/15/2005 - We met up for breakfast at the local Denny’s. A bit later we went over to the mall to catch a movie. The group choice was “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. It was great! Another of those movies you have to watch a few times to catch everything. Very quirky… I enjoyed it. We had dinner at The Golden Corral (aka ‘The Trough’)… good food, and boy did I eat way too much of it. After dinner we made a Wal-Mart run to stock up on supplies… typical things such as silly string, slingshots, confetti, gummy bears. This is war!


New Pictures: TC