My former safe life

I used to sit on my couch and watch the weather alerts crawl across the bottom of my screen as I watched Entertainment Tonight. I'd pick up my phone and call my Mom and make sure they were okay. But now, now I am a storm chaser and this is not by choice...I despise my new life as a storm chaser.

Instead of heading into this, I want to be back on my couch with my blanket and the latest celebrity gossip.


You know you're an idiot when you're flying down the very rural county highway, trying to beat the storm and you pop over the hill only to meet the county sheriff parked along the side of the road watching the clouds. You're going a good 20 over, but he doesn't even flash his lights at you, he just bids you good luck as you head into the darkness.

Every two minutes, a new weather advisory text alert comes through my cell phone. At this point, I don't know if it's a good thing that I know we're sitting right in between two storms, or if I'd be better off not having my phone tell me every two minutes that I'm about to die. John Wayne is hating the text alerts. He is also hating the frantic wife cleanching the seat next to him, asking him every minute and a half if he's scared. To which the obvious reply is "not yet."

John Wayne did some pretty crafy backroad driving, maneuvering to stay behind one storm and ahead of another. About 20 miles from home, we came across this: water flowing down the ditches fast enough to grab a tube and go tubing right here on the plains of eastern Colorado.


It wasn't but another two miles down the road, we pop over the hill and are met by this: so much hail it looked like a winter storm had just blanketed the plains.

Boyero was a disaster. Traffic along Highway 40 barely creeping along, numerous cars slid off into the ditch.


Our commuter, Fancy the Ford Focus, did well. Poor little girl was up to her gills, but under John Wayne's command, she trudged through the nearly foot of hail.


This next picture is misleading, it looks like we're headed off into the sunset for a calm night on the prairie. Not the case. When we make our final turn off the highway to head home, we are met by more hail and heavy rain.


We make it home only to be assaulted by hail as we race from the car to the house and are welcomed home by dark rooms and no electricity. Well, it's 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm blogging...there's only one thing to do when you have no electricity: go to bed.