Friday, November 6, 2009

Adventures on a Tornado Tour - Part 4

Don't forget to set your DVRs to record Storm Chasers on The Discovery Channel this Sunday night!!! But first, read about my fourth day on my storm-chasing tour with one of the teams from the show . . .

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April 23, 2009


Well today started off on an interesting note. I told you yesterday that we were staying in the Quality "Not-so-Quality-in-fact" Inn in Norman. Well, it turns out my bedbugs were not the best story of our stay there. Apparently, Cara was in her bathroom about to get in the shower this morning when she heard a noise. She figured it was nothing so she went ahead and got in the shower. She got out 15 minutes later, wrapped a towel around herself, and stepped out of the bathroom only to be greeted by a man with a shopping cart in her room. Now, you may assume, as I did, that this was a homeless man who had somehow worked his way into her room. No. It was housekeeping.

WITH FREAKING SHOPPING CARTS.

There are so many problems with this!! First, what the heck are they doing waiting in her room when it is clear she is in the shower??? Second, WHY THE HECK DO THEY HAVE SHOPPING CARTS INSTEAD OF MAID CARTS??? Apparently, this happened to 2 others of our group. Then at breakfast, they noticed that some of the yogurt was 2 weeks expired. They pointed this out to one of the employees and she solved it by sticking the expired ones back in the refrigeration unit and getting some non-expired ones out. Crazy!!

Matt (one of 0ur tour guides) was REALLY mad when he heard about what shall now be called "The Great Shopping Cart Room Invasions of 2009" and he went to speak with the manager. After a less-than-productive talk with the manager, Matt asked him what his name was and he told him his name was Randy. But then he had to think about to spell "Randy" and THEN, when he was trying to spell it for Matt, he had to stop and count the letters. Sooooooooooooooo we're thinking that probably was NOT his real name . . .

It was time to hit the road so Rick went into the bathroom real quick. As he walked into the restroom, he was encouraged by Shane who shouted "DO 'EM RIGHT, RICK!!" Aaaaaaaaaaaand then we were off.

Seriously - where did they find that guy??

We spent most of the day on the road. We left Norman, OK (which is about 15 miles south of Oklahoma City) at about 10:30, stopped in Wichita, Kansas for lunch, and then ended our travels in York, Nebraska. The trip was pretty uneventful. I told Matt and Dave about my tradition of honking the horn and cheering each time I cross a state line so they have been doing that on this trip. It's pretty funny. I had my eyes closed at one point and Mike grabbed my foot and said "We're almost to the state line!" and then Matt honked the horn and the whole car erupted into cheers! We did that over the Oklahoma/Kansas line and the Kansas/Nebraska line. Pretty funny - and I think it's cute that they didn't want me to sleep through the state line crossing. It really is a great group - I'm really enjoying these new friendships.

We are staging ourselves in York because the storms could be in this area of Nebraska or in Western Iowa tomorrow. Matt and Dave got out their laptop tonight and looked at the new weather models for this weekend, which apparently looked amazing and promise a jam-packed weekend of storm-chasing fun. How do I know this? Because Matt and Dave looked at the laptop and started freaking out. And by "freaking out" I mean high-fiving each other and cussing excitedly. This happens a lot and when it does, I just sit back and hope it's a good sign. Then they start exclaiming things like "Check out the cape!!" and "Did you see that shear??" and "Holy sh#$!! Can you believe that vorticity??" Again, I just sit back and hope it's a good sign. I know eventually they'll interpret their excitement and explain it to me with words I can understand like "tornado" and "rain" and "oatmeal creme pies" and then I'll be excited, too.

And hopefully eating an oatmeal creme pie . . .

1 comments:

Emma said...

Shane still makes me cringe!!!!