Riding The Storm Out

When I left Kearney Nebraska, at 10am local,  it was cold (50 F) and there was a light rain with big heavy drops falling. 80 miles later as I turned south towards Kansas, after stopping at the Bucks and getting a tall, triple espresso, shots over ice. It started to rain ... hard, then very hard, then impossible hard. The road looked like a river and the speeds slowed to 60 MPH. Lighting was striking everywhere. It was soooo freaken cool. In Cali the rain is light and you seldom need to turn your wipers on past intermittent. The front has moving east and sliding south. I passed through the front 20 miles north of the Kansas boarder and by the time I reached the farm it was 80 and sunny. This is a shot of the front, notice the rain going to ground on the horizon (click to enlarge)

On the Border

The Nebraska, Kansas boarder is miles of rolling hills punctuated with tree lines clinging to drainage gradients and of course farms and pastures. Trees and wildlife cling to the margins which are every where. There are tons of wildlife, hidden subtly but obvious to the discerning eye. More about this tomorrow.

We were out moving 1500 lbs of hay bails, food for the cows during the sparse times next winter when the front finally fell upon us. The temperature dropped 20 degrees in 15 minutes and the wind picked up into a mini-gale. It rained heavy, large drops with a fierce wind from the east. It was odd ... ground wind from the south east while the storm (clouds) moved from the north west all accompanied by intense cloud to cloud and cloud to ground lighting. I guess I saw the jet steams colliding. That's what defines tornado alley

Bring on The Night

By sundown the weather slid south and east of us, with the winds calming to a gentle breeze resulting in a spectacular sunset near 9pm. Lori and I were sitting on the front porch hanging out and enjoying the peace with the coyotes, cows and owls singing off in the distance.

May 30 progress

I traveled only about 180 miles today, the trip out from San Jose to Kansas was 1913 miles (not counting LA which, if counted, makes it nearly 2900 miles. Thanks for taking the ride with me, it was a blast. I was thinking that once on the farm the post would slow to a crawl, and maybe that will happen but right now I have a few more stories to tell :-)

Joe