Saturday, March 12, 2011

Foto Finish - Weather

It's Saturday, finally!  Unfortunately both Kiddo and I appear to have caught nasty colds.  She's more miserable than I am, which is both good and bad.   I hate to see kiddo suffer, but at least I don't feel so bad that I can't take care of her. 

It's Saturday.  Which also means that Barb is hosting this week's Foto feast.  The topic? The weather. 



A couple of years ago we decided to vacation in TX.  My guy had always wanted to go to Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo.  So on this trip we decided to start with that.  Rather than take the major highway, we decided to take state highways and drive out through the OK panhandle into the TX panhandle.  If you live in the plains, you know how impressive those storms can look as the roll in over the flat landscape.  I don't remember the name of the little town where we stopped at this cemetery and snapped a few shots of the incoming storm.  But I do remember the 30 minutes after this shot was taken.   We were in the middle of the storm dealing with golf ball sized hail (which makes a really sickening sound if you are in a car).  We were concerned the windshield was going to break. At the first opportunity we turned south to get out of the center of the storm.  Which was the best idea we'd had all day.  A few miles down the road we met up with a group of storm chasers.  There were 2 or 3 tornadoes that day, we threaded the needle and managed to find a route between the 2 storms that had the worst of the tornadic activity.  Thankfully, it was dry for the rest of the week.   

That's it for me today.  It looks like we'll have spring weather today, which I'm more than ready for.  Check out Cat Patches for more weather stories. 

6 comments:

Barbara said...

Great shot and harrowing story! Having just driven through that area, I can appreciate your descriptions. We were lucky to avoid bad weather. Not something I care to experience first hand.

Irina said...

I've only seen this (the shot) and the story that you've told in films...
I've never been in the midlands! I was thinking of Dorothy and Toto and the tornado...

Maree said...

I have read about the tornadoes in the US. They sound terrifying. We have the occasional tornado come in off the sea. They usually fizzle out fairly quickly but can cause enormous damage along their path. As a child I was in a house that had half its roof taken off by a tornado. I have no memory of his but have seen the photos.

quiltzyx said...

Too scary for me!
Great story & photo - thanks for sharing with us.

Anonymous said...

I live in OK and I know exactly what kind of storms roll through between OK and TX!! It's a great shot and the clouds say it all.

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

The colors between the sky and the grass are beautiful! Glad you were able to escape.