Chris Brown is the Lanky Git

Day 2

Denver, Colorado

I woke up early today, really early. Considering the long day I had yesterday I was actually worrying about oversleeping and missing our 9:30am departure. However, I had needn’t have worried, as I was up and awake at 04:30am. Hmm

At 9:30am we were all ready at reception waiting for Todd and the SUV to arrive, everyone asked politely how each had slept. A quick seat selection for the day – we are expected to rotate where we sat in the SUV to give everyone a chance of riding up front, being the first day and the only person travelling  alone, I got shotgun. The front seat afforded a great view of the onboard computer with live weather and satellite data.

Our first stop wasn’t as far away as I thought it might be – ½ mile down the road to the Village Inn for breakfast. Breakfast  consumed (French Toast & Maple Syrup) we were finally away. As we set off Todd explained that we were going to be heading firstly to Northeast Colorado and then North in to Nebraska. The plan was to head towards a developing storm front in western Nebraska.

One of the first things that struck me about this part of America was that it was big, really big and very flat and very often with nothing to see for miles, apart from rolling pastures.

As we neared our first ‘storm’ everyone was pretty excited and a toilet break was suggested. We parked up right next to the KFC and as we stopped as we spotted a huge truck trailer selling fireworks. Now I am not normally drawn to this kind of thing but the two lasses from Maine were excited, very excited! Fireworks are illegal in Maine and this was their chance to go buy some fireworks to let off when the opportunity presented itself, which happened to be about 30 minutes later on a side track at 4pm in the afternoon, in the daylight.

Our first storm actually never amounted to much more than a lot of heavy rain and thunder.  We  watched the first part of the storm pass by us before moving to the north side of the next incoming thunderstorm, again not much to report.  When we were waiting for the first storm we had parked up at the side of a dirt road next to a field of maize. Whilst waiting, all of us could hear a cat meowing and it sounded like it was in pain. With the possibility of snakes living in the long grass where the noise was coming from, none of us dared venture in to check it out. We later decided the cat had probably been bitten/eaten by a snake as it went quiet while we were still stood there!

The rest of the day was taken up with driving ever further north. As most of the storms for the next week were forecast in Western Montana, Eastern North Dakota and South Dakota, Todd decided to get the worse of the driving done that day. Having left Denver that morning, we had done a large circuit into Nebraska and the then north into the state of South Dakota. I have to confess that I wasn’t very sociable on the first ‘chasing’ day. All the travelling the day before and the early start had left me somewhat tired, add to that the motion of the car and I was affectionately called Sleepy Head when I woke that evening, having slept through the last 150 miles of the 550+ miles we had covered that day – there is alot of travelling/driving involved.

Tonight’s base was the town of Chadron, South Dakota. After checking us in and watching the awesome sunset, Todd informed us that we would meet by the car in fifteen minutes to go and get some dinner. Fifteen minutes, to freshen up and get changed into some jeans – the evenings are cool. Unfortunately I had neglected to drink enough liquids during the day and I had a massive headache. I took some Paracetamol , put on a brave face and headed out for dinner – Pizza Hut.

On the way back to the Best Western Motel, we were booked into, we passed another roadside fireworks outlet, but this one was massive. A marquee selling a huge array of fireworks, the girls were very excited! We just caught the owners as they were shutting up for the night and we all made a few purchases. Now then, it was time to find somewhere to set these babies off. An empty parking lot was located and what proceeded was the funniest firework lighting session I have ever seen. Great fun was had by all and it happened to be a really good ice breaker.

Another long and exhausting day was over and we headed to bed, somewhere around 11pm I think. Hopefully time for a nice long deep sleep…

Storm Chasing