Belfield, North Dakota

Finally a good night’s sleep, helped by an adrenaline charged day yesterday and a late night. We did arrive at our motel until about 10pm, tired and hungry a healthy tip to the lady in the kitchen of the bar secured us Pizza and fries, which went down nicely with a couple of beers.

Having now been with Todd for five days you actually start to remember what he is telling you – he is an excellent teacher. One of the first things you look for in the morning when you wake up is cloud cover. Cloud cover is bad for storms and you have to get out from under it to stand any chance of seeing some action. Based on this we headed south.

After a few hours it was becoming clear that chances of seeing any storms today were low, however we persevered. Our route south had us sat in a side road just outside of Rapid City for just about an hour before it was decided today may just be a wash out. We drove east for another 10 minutes and came across an oasis, which was disguised as a gas station, sold beer as well as fuel and had a few high tables inside with a few bar games and even a crib board. After a beer and few jokes with the local cowboys, Todd informed us that our home for the night would be Wall, just an hour’s drive east.

We arrived in wall drug very early evening, the skies were blue and the air still warm. We all unloaded our bags from the SUV and Todd asked us to be back down in 15 minutes as we were going to head to the Badlands – only 8 miles away – and watch the sunset. The Badlands National park is actually somewhere I never thought I would visit but you really should try and put it on your ‘to-do list’. Sadly the sunset was spoilt by and storm cloud drifting in over the sun – typical. It was then back to Wall Drug for food and a couple of drinks before hitting the hay.

Just a point worthy of note, the motel we stayed in tonight… Sunshine Inn !

Keystone, South Dakota

Today I learnt that waking up at 5,000 feet above sea level with a hangover isn’t the greatest feeling in the world. I headed off to breakfast in the hope that the fried food and coffee would settle my stomach and stop everything from spinning. It didn’t, which was unfortunate, as today was my turn to ride in the back of the SUV. This was a job for my trusty travel sick pills - Kwells.

First stopped of the day was Starbucks! Or as Todd put it, our last chance for a real coffee until we start coming south again. A quick caffeine and cash point/ATM stop and we were back on the road again, heading north towards North Dakota and into west Montana.

During the course of the week Todd had been telling us about a town up in these parts where bikers from all over the USA converged each summer for a weekend of music, beer and apparently, drunken nakedness. So as it was en-route, we made a dive off of the highway into the town of Sturgis, South Dakota. It certainly was a biker town, I have never seen so many Harley Davidson’s in one place at the same time. A quick visit to a ‘real’ bikers bar and we were off again.

The target area for today was just inside Eastern Montana, around the town of Baxter. The forecasts were good for some isolated supercell activity, and with us chasers so far being completely storm deprived we were ready for some action! It was around about 4 in the afternoon when we arrived in Baxter. Another snack/fuel/toilet break and we were heading north towards some very dark looking clouds. Inside the car we had a laptop set up which was always showing live Doppler weather radar and this storm was starting to grow with certain parts being covered by red squares (see image), which indicated thunderstorm warnings. However, what we were looking for was icons indicating cloud rotation and purple areas, which would show a tornado warning.

Without warning Todd pulled into the entrance of a dirt road and said we would be waiting for a bit to see what happens. Being our first proper storm, we all clambered out of the SUV and intently all stood staring at the sky. It was like something from a Sci Fi movie. Todd knowing better stayed in the SUV watching the radar and weather warnings. Ten more minutes and he announced we were going to get closer. Another, roadside stop and we actually saw our first wall cloud. It was about 3 miles away and moving to east. Once again we piled back in the SUV and drove another mile or so north. Now things were getting exciting, the radar was not only show strong rotation – which we could actually see now, it had just pinged up with a tornado warning! The sky was really darkening now and you could clearly see the clouds rotating and sucking in more clouds from around it, the core was also visible no more than a mile away and closing, Todd pointed out that what we could see was the hail falling from the core, which was about 2-3 inches in diameter. After about 30 minutes the wall cloud was no more than ¼ mile away and because the rain was starting to fall a bit heavier, Todd decided to move us back south away from the approaching hail.

The next stop is one of the memorable ones of the trip. We had positioned ourselves about 1-2 miles away and we could now see the storm cell that we had been stood under in its entirety. It was a monster. We spent 20 minutes enjoying the view and still hoping that the Tornado warning would come to fruition, sadly it did not. It was while watching from this vantage point that Todd suddenly ordered us all in the SUV before he took off down the road at break neck speed. He said that the hail – now showing as baseball size = was wrapping around us and if we didn’t get out from under the storm we would be cut off by some rather large chunks of ice falling from the sky.

As the storm moved southeast it was weakening on the radar and was become less dangerous, however the Arcus Cloud that had formed in front of the storm was a sight to behold. Todd decided to position us so that the storm could come towards and pass over us, with the aim being that the now weaken core should drop its quarter size (10 pence) size hail on us – we would be in the car of course. When it hails out here the temperature can go from 80f+ to low 50’s very quickly and the landscape is left looking like it has a fresh dusting of snow, which is sometimes inches deep. The core missed us, so we were off to chase it down. Having been pelted by the hail, rain and wind we made a beeline for North Dakota. Our most northerly overnight stop in Belfield, North Dakota was to have us just a couple of hours drive from the borders of Canada.

Today had been long day, that wasn’t helped by the late night before, however we had one last photo stop to make. As we drove north with the sun setting to the west and the storm moving east, we were presented with the most glorious sunset I have ever seen. The pictures really don’t show how orange the sky was – spectacular.

We were all now officially bitten by the storm chasing bug but we only had a few more days left to hunt down the holy grail of storm chasing – the Tornado.

Chadron, South Dakota

I woke up early again… 5:30am today. It’s ok though, I can attribute that to the group of bikers that started up their Harley Davidson’s right outside my motel room window, however the sun was shining and I knew we had a sightseeing day planned, due to the lack of storms that day. First thing to do was to get myself breakfast before meeting with the others at 9:30am.

As mentioned, today was a ‘non-chase day’, so order of the day was sightseeing! Despite having come to chase storms for only six days, I was quite excited about doing some sightseeing. After all it would be a shame to come all this way and at not see anything other than paved roads and fields of grass and cattle. As our target area for the next day (Day 4) was Eastern Montana we were going to be heading north through the Black Hills of South Dakota, which is the home of the Wind Cave National Park and more famously, Mount Rushmore.

The Wind Cave National Park was the first stop of that day and it turned out to be one of the most memorable, non-storm, parts of the trip too. The caves themselves have an interesting history and are well worth a visit if you are ever in the area. Our tour guide – bless his heart – was a nice young lad, who it appeared, was still training to be a ‘Cave Ranger’. The talk he gave during the tour was very informative although his philosophical tone was the cause of a few sniggers during the hour we spent inside the caves. His opening line of “Imagine you are a 16 year old boy…” was one that stuck with us for the rest of the week.

Next stop on our whirl wind tour (yes, that’s a joke) of the Black Mountains was Mount Rushmore. The mount has the faces of four former American presidents carved into it. The faces, which are each over 60 feet in height, represent the first 150 years in the history of the United States. As with every stop we were asked to meet back at the SUV at an allotted time, in this case, 45 minutes later. Whilst waiting for the others to return,  I enjoyed watching a storm pass through the valley below. Watching it shed its load of rain and discharge its lightning was quite surreal as I was stood in the blazing sunshine hoping I wasn’t getting burnt, no more than a couple of miles away from the downpour.

Our home for the night was the town of Keystone, South Dakota, which was only a few miles from Mount Rushmore.  However before checking into our motel for the night Todd had one more stop planned. As we passed through Keystone, the ever knowledgeable Todd pointed out suitable drinking holes that would require a visit that evening. Last stop of the day was the Big Bear Country USA wildlife park. If you had ever been to Windsor Safari Park then you know what to expect here.  It was a drive through Wildlife Park. The main attraction of the park was obviously the Bears, however there was much more to see as you drove though.  Elks, Reindeer, White Wolves, Mountain Goats, Leopards and Bison were all roaming free. At the end of the drive through, there was a kind of mini zoo where the main attraction was the baby bears. The bears are kept here until they are big enough to fend for themselves in the main enclosure.

Back to Keystone and Todd had one more thing planned for us – this guy never stops – right next to our motel, the Super 8 in Keystone was the Presidents Alpine Slide. Another attraction I actually remember being at the Windsor Safari Park before it was turned into Legoland. The Alpine Slide is a toboggan ride where you can control the speed of your sledge as you ride 2km down the side of a mountain, more info on their website. We rode to the top of the hill on a chairlift, and after a beer at the top it was time for speedy ride back to the bottom!

What a day, and there was still one more thing left to do… hit the bar for a well earned beer or five…

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…

Day 1 (27th June 2009)

This is it. Today is the day I make the long trek to Denver, Colorado to join a tour group and go storm chasing! When I say storm chasing, think Discovery Channels program ‘Storm Chasers’ and you are on the right track. Severe thunderstorms, high winds, large hail and tornados are all on the menu for the week.

The aim of the trip is to join other like minded people to actively track down and chase severe weather in the American Midwest. Severe weather constitutes supercell thunderstorms that are capable of producing tornados. The group I am joining is run by Storm Chasing Adventure Tours and claims to be one of the most well equipped chasing companies in Tornado Alley. Never having done this before, I have taken their word for it.

For the next week I will be living out of a SUV and staying in a different motel each night, so packing relatively lightly is essential. Hard cases are banned and duffel bags are in. I set off for the airport feeling like I didn’t really have enough clothes to see me through the next week, but I had enough clean undies and socks to last me the week, plus a few days extra.

Seeing as I wasn’t travelling with the kids, this seemed like a great opportunity to book Upper Class with Virgin to Chicago. I have to say that I must be getting used to travelling with kids and the distraction they offer on long transatlantic flights. I was actually feeling a bit bored after a few hours of drinking champagne and watching movies, so I got my head down for a couple of hours.

Upon arrival in Chicago, I had to pass though immigration, identify my bag and then run to terminal B for my next flight to Denver with American Airlines.  However, as I passed through passport control I was detained, their reason being I had a fairly common name…  It was actually a rather painless affair involving a room with wooden benches and walls of two way glass. I had nothing to hide so I grabbed my book and read until they finally decided to let me continue on my journey. I was never really told why I was stopped, but they were pleasant enough so no harm done. Now having been sat there for an hour, I really had to run to catch my next flight.

The only worthy thing to note about my Chicago – Denver leg was that I was flying on a Super 80 aircraft – an old thing that has the engines at the back of the fuselage and I was sat right between them, next to a gum chewer, who spent the 3 hours making loud chewing and chamming noises, fabulous. The flight landed on time, happy days. Now I had 1 hour to get to the airport and meet up with the rest of the group. “Taxi!”.

Safely checked into the Quality Inn Suites just 12 miles from the airport it was time to meet my fellow ‘stormies’ for the next week and watch and orientation video, which was a kind of one hour lesson in meteorology, how tornados form and what to look out for. As it turned out the group I was in, was the smallest of the season. It consisted of Todd – our guide, driver and founder of the tour company, a high school principal and his daughter from Texas, another high school teacher and her friend, both from the state of Maine.

As an icebreaker we all went out to dinner and then for a couple of beers after, I am sure that I could have been a bit more social if I hadn’t have now been awake for near enough 24 hours. So after a polite good night to everyone, I went into bed thinking I was going to fall instantly asleep. The prospect of the forthcoming week however,  was enough to stop me dropping off to sleep for at least another hour.

A couple of months ago I found an online company selling spaces on tours set up specifically to chase storms. As luck would have it there was a single space left on a tour that fell into a small window I was free in June/July. Having gained permission from the wife, who laughed at me and said I was mad, I booked the space that was left and a return flight to match.

So what’s the deal? Well I am flying to Denver, Colorado where I am going to hook up with the rest of my fellow ‘weather tourists’ before embarking on the long road trip that is storm chasing. With the company promising between 200-500 miles on the road each day I guess it’s not for those who get bored quickly. Packed into SUV’s that will hold 6 off us, the plan is drive to places where - based on scientific information - severe weather and hopefully tornados are supposed to appear. There is actually no guarantee that I will even see a Tornado, however the chances of seeing a severe thunderstorm are quite high, and I do like a bit of lightening!

Armed with my camera, a HD video camera and my laptop I hope to be able to post a daily blog of my travels, hopefully including some nice pictures and video footage. I most definitely will spend a lot of time (and money) updating my facebook and twitter page.

Am I mad? Yes probably, but I can’t wait!

http://www.stormchasing.com/

Sorry if this annoys those who have me loaded in to their RSS feedreaders, pointless post I know, but if I don’t write this I will NEVER get around to writing anything, you know how it is

Chris

Sadly due to work commitments in Spain, Paul O’Neill was unable to race at Brands Hatch, however he WILL be out fielding the second car at Thruxton Circuit on the 26th April.

The weekend started off well after a strong qualifying session by Martyn which saw us settle in 15th place on the grid. Despite being more than half way back on the grid it was great for a number of reasons. Firstly, by his own admission, Martyn is a racer not a qualifier and prefers to race against other cars as opposed to the clock. Secondly we were only 0.143 seconds off the fastest time posted by Dave Pinkney in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic - a newer car run by a team with a much bigger budget than ours. Finally, last season Martyn qualified in 24th position. We had been set to qualify a strong 13th however we missed out on the last few minutes of qualifying after Jelley put his Team RAC BMW in the gravel trap, bringing a halt to proceedings and loss of the heat in our tyres with not much time to get them warm again. Pinkney and George just finding a tenth of a second before Jelley’s off.

Race One

The first race saw Martyn fighting with the likes of Tom Chilton and Dan Eaves, which saw him bring the car home in a comfortable tenth place. The Integra proved it still has pace as Martyn spent the last 7 or so laps of the race gaining on Dan Eaves and lapping just .080 of a second than the Cartridge World Seat Leon.

Having known how dedicated Martyn is and how hard he works to get a decent result, it was great to at last see him prove that he does have what it takes to race in the BTCC and that having a decent car is half the battle won! He came back to the pits to lots of cheering fans, to us he had just won the race.

Race Two

Despite starting from tenth on the grid for race two the Team sunshine.co.uk Integra conceded two places early in the race as the grid jostled for position entering the first turn into Paddock Hill Bend and subsequently Druids hairpin at the top of the hill. This didn’t stop Martyn holding on to a fine twelfth, less than two seconds behind Jason Plato.

Race Three

As the sun set on the opening three rounds of the season Martyn and the trusty Honda Integra once again took to the grid, having had some cosmetic damage repaired by the Techspeed boys. Once again the car was bought home tenth once more and another point’s finish for the weekend. As was pointed out, we have finished the first meeting of the season with more points than we finished the whole of the 2008 season.

“Without doubt that was my best weekend in the BTCC,” he said. “I know I scored points with the BMW, but they were points I picked up, whereas at Brands Hatch, I raced for them. I had confidence in the car and was able to push a lot more, and the Integra really seems to suit me - even if I did make a fool of myself by going to get in the wrong side before the first practice session!

“I’m thrilled to bits with how the weekend went for me, the team and the sponsors. I now have a car that will allow me to show what I can do and I wasn’t a million miles away on the times. To be less than 20 seconds behind race winner Jason Plato in race three shows how far we’ve come.

“Brands Hatch has never been my best circuit, so hopefully there is more to come as the season goes on, and while I was aiming for top tens this weekend, I now want to try and be getting towards the top eight. I also can’t wait for Paul to join me in the second car, as he is a proven race winner and will only help to push me on. There is no reason why we can’t have the two sunshine.co.uk cars battling for points.”

The Team sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra was the also the highest placed BTC spec car over all three races. The team come away standing eighth in the overall team standings and seventh in the independents championship.

Join us on Facebook: Official Team sunshine.co.uk fan group

When they approached me last year I told them that I was in the habit of clearing my balance each month – saves interest, so based on this the advisor recommended the Virgin Atlantic Black Card. It has a higher interest rate an annual fee of £115. The benefit being that I would receive 2 virgin miles for every pound I spend, or 4 miles for each pound when I use the card to buy Virgin Atlantic flights. Being a regular flyer with Virgin it meant I could add miles monthly to my Flying Club membership. These ‘miles’ can ultimately be used to book Virgin flights with ala Air Miles.

So you can imagine my shock when I try to book a flight only for the card to decline. So I call MBNA and ask what the problem is as I know I have just cleared the balance a week earlier.  It turns out my credit limit had been reduced and I was under investigation for ‘breaking the terms of the card’ – overuse! I mean come on, I never go over my limit, I pay promptly each month and I get told off for using the card too much.

As well as overuse, there also seem to be a problem with a single transaction from a couple of months ago, which went through my travel company website.  I was told that using the card for business wasn’t allowed. Fair cop, no problem, please take the Virgin Miles off my account, but it seems they don’t do that, they just restrict your use of the card via the limit to stop you spending so much.

Without going into too much detail I closed the account as I was so incensed. Looks like I have to go back to collecting Air Miles again, pfft. You’d think in this current climate the banks and financial groups would be happy to take your money off of you.

To add insult to injury, I am not allowed the 85,000 miles I racked up and paid for.