6/12/08: Panning for Gold near El Dorado
I left OKC around 2:00 PM enroute to El Dorado, Kansas by way of I-35. I wasn’t quite to Kansas yet when storms started going up in SE Kansas just north of US-50, lumbering northeast. This was perfect, as far as I was concerned, since US-50 runs more or less southwest-northeast in that area. This meant for good viewing. Sometimes, things are just too good to be true.
The line of storms stretched northeast from the Florence area. When I got in there, there were still two separate cells at the tail end. I went after the lead storm because it was tornado-warned. I caught up with it as it was occluding and mushing out to become part of the line, so I turned around and went after the second storm. Meanwhile, the line is back-building.
My plan was to drop back south in US-77, but the updraft base of the storm cut me off, so I ended up meandering on winding dirt roads (darn Flint Hills) trying to pop out on US-77 south of Florence (and the storm’s nougat). Nothing doing. While I was winding around and about, the back-building parts of the line started to wind up, so it seemed like everytime I popped out, I was in the path of the teeth of each storm. This is not necessarily a bad thing… it lends itself well to taking pictures. But at the same time it hurries you up and makes you spend your time trying to pick and guess your way out of the back roads (which are NOT straight forward in this part of Kansas… many thanks be to Delorme & GPS).
After a couple hours of playing dodge-em, I finally found a paved road (don’t remember what it was called) that allowed me to get an edge on things. By then, the structures and colors of the storms had become fantastic. I didn’t see any tornadoes, even though I was on the storm that someone claimed a stovepipe on. In the fading light, I finished the chase were I expected to start: El Dorado. A pleasant little town. I got there just in time to meet the blobs behind the line, and shot south on I-35 just in time to have yet another close call with a meso just north of the MM-16 toll gate. Eased on down the road on I-35 to get back home around 12:45 AM.
When I pulled into the garage, I was greeted by a spider the size of one of my hands. I actually looked to make sure my hands were still there when I saw it.
After having driven down all those dirt roads today, at times feeling like I was driving a slot car, I can’t help but wonder why in the world Kansas’s dirt roads are smoother than Oklahoma’s interstates.
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