Friday, June 20, 2008
The majority of Day 2 was uneventful and quite normal.
For pictures from Day 2, click here.
However, inching ever closer to the Colorado state line in the afternoon and evening hours, we began to become excited realizing that we were making good enough time to possibly make it into Boulder in the late evening. But, as darkness fell upon us, so did some remarkable storms.
We were now on the phone consulting with my brother David back in Georgia giving us weather.com updates and relaying to us which areas were in red and exactly where tornados had been spotted on the ground. After waiting out a few storms at a local gas station, we decided we might be able to push through after one particular storm had passed. At this point in the evening, we were in eastern Colorado, and had passed through Flagler Ariba, and Genoa. We were observing large storms off in the distance with spectacular lightning displays. We pushed through Limon and aimed northwest towards Byers. This is where things got rough.
We started to realize we might have made a bad decision when we saw semi-trucks slowing down and noticed there were no other cars on Interstate 70. However, the kicker came when we happened upon two identical white panel vans with small antenna boxes on the rear of the roof. They too began to slow. As we slowly passed by them, our heads turned to look in and through the front windows we saw computer display screens and were convinced now and realized that we were alone out there with storm chasers.
Around this time it began to rain horribly and lightning increased. I was of the opinion that since we were next to the storm chasers, we would be safe because they probably knew exactly where the storms were the worst, and assuming they are not suicidal, they would keep at a proper distance. However, Heather was of the opinion that that is exactly why we should turn around and get away from the storm chasers and head back towards Limon and seek shelter immediately. So, I obliged and we turned around in a panic at the next ramp.
Now is when things were scariest for me, the driver. I was realizing that perhaps we were exactly already in the worst of it, and now that we were turning around and heading back, it would be with us a while. The best thing to do would have been to slowly drive with the emergency flashers on, right? No way – I was blazing to keep up with the rear taillights of a large truck because that was the only thing I could see. The road must have been there, but I could see none of it through the storm. So eventually we did outrun the storm and immediately sought shelter in Limon and decided to put to rest this eventful evening after two long days of driving.
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