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It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been working on editing books and designing book covers. I launched my first collection at the Stolen Butter Gallery. I went on a road trip. And I hauled my camera here and there to shoot storms and space launches.

There were highlights – for instance, a violent storm on August 26 that produced a stunning shelf cloud that I captured in Cocoa Beach, with the statue of champ Kelly Slater “surfing” the wave of the storm. And sometimes, even when a launch was lackluster, the skies were beautiful anyway. But the pattern this summer has strongly favored the west coast of Florida, so we haven’t had much in the way of good storms, and when we did, I was out of town for most of them.

 

The road trip was a whirlwind pleasure tour (without whirlwinds) through the Midwest, after a family visit or two. Besides hitting cocktail bars (which my alter ego will post about), my husband and I had a taste of city and country in our travels.

One of the highlights for me was visiting the Johnstown Flood National Memorial in Pennsylvania, site of the lake whose water hurtled downstream, destroying everything in its path and killing more than 2200 people, when the South Fork Dam broke in 1889.

 

While we’re all awaiting the twice-delayed launch of the Artemis moon rocket, other launches have kept the skies interesting over the Space Coast. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

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Is it storm chasing when there are not actually storms to chase? I say yes. Especially when we wander around traditional chase territory in between the storms.

On May 22, we built our day around a visit to the U Drop Inn – the 1936 Conoco gas station that’s been beautifully restored in Shamrock, Texas. It’s a Route 66 landmark and inspired the garage in the movie “Cars.” In fact, we arrived the night before and got a few photos then. But when we planned to visit, it was Sunday, and Texas is closed on Sunday, apparently. I’ve been before but really wanted to visit the cafe, which is actually operating now.

Still, we saw a few other outdoor attractions in Shamrock (see the photos) before moving on. I had no idea an alleged piece of the Blarney Stone was here.

Moving on, we had a nice lunch in Wheeler, then went on to find the remote and desolate intersection in the Texas Panhandle where the last scene of “Cast Away” was filmed. This is where Tom Hanks’s character delivers the package he kept unopened while stranded on the desert island – a symbol of dedication and hope that leads him to promise for his future.

 

We did our best to channel Tom Hanks, and Alethea created a mini “Wilson” out of a rock, since no volleyballs were at hand. She left it there. If you find it, let us know! (Where is the “Cast Away” intersection? Near Mobeetie, Texas. Program 35°38’2.18″ N 100°27’4.99″ W into your map app.)

We also headed to Groom, Texas, perhaps best known for its giant cross. We focused on the leaning tower of Texas, aka the Britten water tower, which leans and balances on two legs thanks to the perfect amount of water in its tank. It was positioned this way to attract visitors to a truck stop that burned down long ago. You can read more on the excellent Atlas Obscura website.

Then it was on to The Big Texan in Amarillo, where we did not eat a “free” 72-ounce steak* … *dinner if eaten in one hour. That asterisk is on all the billboards. Look for it!

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It’s time for Storm Chasing 2022! Even if we missed all the amazing storms at the end of April and the very start of May.

Alethea Kontis and I took a couple of days to travel out to Tornado Alley from Florida – realizing halfway through the journey that the weather pattern had changed from promising for storms to a much more challenging one.

We decided to press on anyway since hope springs eternal and all of that.

With occasional stops for food and gas, we drove about 1547 miles in the first two days. Our plan is to pursue photography and writing when the storms aren’t cooperating.

Here’s a video of us crossing the Mississippi in Arkansas – the official entry into the West.

I’m traveling right now, but it’s not what it sounds like. I’m actually dealing with a family crisis and trying to work in the scant time in between. Still, I took a short break today and visited a wonderful model train display. I would say toy trains, because it sounds more fun, but I think the serious train guys might object.

The display is located at Garden Spot Village, a retirement community in New Holland, Pennsylvania. It was open for a couple of hours today during a fall festival. So I spent a few minutes decompressing and imagining myself in the tiny world of the trains through the eye of my iPhone.

This is a laid-back little video. The models range from various gauges traversing sophisticated settings to cute Thomas the Tank Engine trains. The attention to detail is fantastic. If only I’d had more time to capture it all! I suppose the same could be said of life. My thoughts are certainly running that way as I see a dear family member struggling with age and illness.

Treasure the time you have, friends.

I recently had the chance to visit the beautifully restored TWA terminal at JFK airport when I went to New York for the Romance Writers of America convention. Now the terminal is the TWA Hotel and a great place to stop in the 1960s for a cocktail on your way to somewhere else.

Originally designed by architect Eero Saarinen, the retired terminal is pure art, with graceful lines, gorgeous views everywhere, and not a square corner to be seen. Click on the thumbnails to see bigger images or go through the whole gallery.

Alethea Kontis and I targeted southwest Kansas near the Colorado border for our first Tornado Alley chase of the 2018 season. Despite a brief foray into Colorado, we ended up chasing pretty cells from Kansas into the Oklahoma panhandle. We saw multiple funnels but nothing close to a tornado. It was mostly a rainbow chase, but a pretty one. And we got to see Dorothy’s House, straight from Oz.

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May 18, 2017, started with a “high risk” forecast issued by the Storm Prediction Center. I hate chasing high risks. I’ve had high-risk busts or missed fast-moving, violent wedges on high-risk days. I’ve never had a great high-risk chase.

At least today, Kathy Velasquez and I targeted northwest Oklahoma, broke the high-risk tornado curse and saw one near Waynoka. There were many pretty sights today, even if all of them were far too brief.

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This was almost the chase that didn’t happen. My car needed a crucial part after overheating, and it wasn’t available anywhere near where I was staying in Perryton, Texas, so I paid a courier to have it delivered – and the wrong part arrived, killing our chance to chase a day with solid tornado potential. Fortunately, saving the day for Kathy Velasquez and myself, our friends Matt Crowther, Betsy Abrams and Chuck Fallis saw our stranded status and picked us up. The chase was on, and we saw a smorgasbord of storms – a tornado, hail, supercells, and sadly, tornado damage.

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On May 18, Kathy Velasquez and I aimed for the point where extreme western Texas met New Mexico, in the only warm air on the front that wasn’t in Mexico.

We went to El Paso and then north into New Mexico to chase the storms there. As a bonus, we saw a variety of scenery along the way.

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This is my twentieth season chasing storms. Dude, that’s two decades. I’m pretty sure the older generation of chasers still considers me and my contemporaries post-“Twister” whipper snappers, but seriously. I’ve been around. I’ve seen more tornadoes that I’ve bothered to count (but have had prints made of the photogenic ones). I’ve had cars remodeled by hail and a deer (unrelated to storms, except it happened during one of those trips). I’ve learned stressful situations help forge great friendships. I’ve chased storms with friends and, often, by myself. I remember when you could have a storm all to yourself – a virtual impossibility today as storm-chasing culture, fueled by TV, has exploded (whipper snappers!). Perhaps this is all a way to say that I’m kind of old.

Nonetheless, I just started my twentieth chase trip to Tornado Alley. In between, I chase storms in Florida and take photos of weather (and other things) wherever I am, but every year, this is the time when I fuel my passion and try to capture the incredible storms of the Great Plains with my cameras. Some years have been better than others. This one started with a bang – just one day into my trip, I saw one of the best tornadoes of my career, near Wray, Colorado.

Lots of things have changed in storm chasing since I started, not least of which is the availability of Internet, and therefore radar data, in the car. (Making it SO easy for the whipper snappers.) One of the side effects of all this instant connectivity is that after you have an incredible experience filming a tornado and feel all warm and fuzzy about it (at least when they occur in the middle of nowhere), in a few moments, you see a better photo or angle on Twitter on Facebook and kick yourself for not getting the same thing. There were amazing photos of the big Wray tornado from the other side – better than mine – but it was still amazing to be there.

That’s the joy of life, isn’t it? We all have different experiences, at least when we actually get out and experience things, instead of having them spoon-fed to us on television and in other media. And one of the beautiful things about storm chasing is that every experience is not just unique to the individual, it’s unique to the moment. There will never again be a storm exactly like the one I saw Saturday that produced that dusty tornado. And the challenge will always remain to get the forecast right, to get into the best viewing position, and to avoid being swept away to Oz.

Though I wouldn’t mind seeing Dorothy’s tornado.

Given the epic amounts of driving I’ve done so far just to get into position and then chase on Saturday, I haven’t had time to update my 2016 chase reports yet. But stay tuned to SkyDiary.com, where I’ll have a full report on the Wray tornado soon (which I caught with Jason Persoff), along with photos of other chases. See you under the meso!