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Kirsten Koza |
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1: Back to Tornado Alley -- Ron found us a storm each day, right from
day 1. We caught up to this particular storm early in the evening. |
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This is the same storm, changed by the light of the vanishing sun. |
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The front side of a dying storm. |
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Pursuing a storm that is still in New Mexico over farm-track-roads in
western Texas.After the chase Ron bought us a platter of deep-fried bull balls and mushrooms. I couldn't tell the testicles and mushrooms apart until I had them in my mouth. |
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5: My trip partner for week-2, Karen Fockler.Karen isn't scared of storms, but she is scared of tripods in fork lightning, and flying monkeys. |
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6: Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, Texas. |
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7: Texas lawn ornaments.They really do do everything bigger in Texas -- this is a long way off from pink flamingoes and gnomes. |
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8: One of the Stratfords is not like the others.And it is the Stratford in Texas that doesn't produce plays by Shakespeare -- just read the sign on the wall! |
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9: Northern Nebraska near the South Dakota border. |
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10: We played around this storm outside Valentine Nebraska, for 4-hours.
It produced 3-funnel clouds,148 km winds and 6.35 cm hail.As I skidded the chase vehicle around the corner of a narrow chip seal road, Ron fired off instructions from his navigator chair, "There may be a tornado coming over that hill. When the rotating wind hits, you need to..." I caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror of Karen's face. I shouldn't have looked at Karen. "Blah blah blah..." Ron was still telling me how to drive! I was crying with laughter. Howling. I couldn't take in anything, wind speeds, rotation... I couldn't see out of my eyes because of the tears of laughter. "Get the car low." What -- get the car low? Where -- through the fence and down the steep embankment? Snot sprayed out of my nose. I glanced at Karen. I shouldn't have. It made it funnier. Karen's face was red. She was bawling with laughter. This shouldn't be funny -- I couldn't fool myself, it was. I kept driving, blind from tears. "Don't pee on my seat. I've told you to dent my car with hail, but the one thing you are not to do, is pee on my seat!" |
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11: Nebraska grasslands. |
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12: Death of the storm. |
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13: After the exhausting chase we booked into the Super 8 in Valentine.We were greeted by these unusual (to me) hotel instructions on the desk by the TV. Pay particular attention to the 3rd and 4th instruction, plus the cap-locks type towards bottom. It is my guess that folks have gutted their kill way more than once at the Valentine Super 8, that instructions such as these have to be posted in each room. I added the feathers -- just to make it clear that the hotel management is not talking about people preening their pet parrots. |
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14: My first tornado.
I watched a tornado touch down on the dirt track about a km ahead of
our chase vehicle and Ron yelled to me, "Go go go! Drive towards it as
fast as you can!"
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15: Our final storm of the week. |
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16: A storm feature.
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17: Nebraska. |
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18: Lunch break on an Iowa farm.No house or outbuilding or screaming fans in sight -- nothing but a guy pounding away his demons, in front of his tractor. |
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