15 May 2019
“I’ve been to the USA and Nebraska 2 times. I could eat Runza 3 times a day.”
Norton, KS to McCook, NE (477 km)
I only managed about five hours of sleep and was up at six. Since I had no photos to process, it was easy to go for a long walk to downtown Norton.
I walked around the county courthouse.
And took a look at a classic small town cinema that had been restored.
I walked about three kilometres and was back at the hotel for breakfast by 8:30. We had our orientation at 10:30 and they decided to stay in the Kansas/Colorado/Nebraska region for the day as there wasn’t a lot forecast but there was the chance of some basic thunderstorms.
We drove west towards Colorado and passed through a familiar town with my favourite hotel name. Look closely.
We had lunch at a Tempest favourite, the Grainery in Idalia. I had a chicken wrap with a side of green beans again.
By now, the cumulus clouds were popping up. We pulled into a park in Joes, Colorado, and watched the clouds for about a half hour.
Bill picked one to follow and we headed east, back into Kansas. The storm grew and hid us in the shadow of the anvil cloud that was visible on the satellite shot. There was only a little lightning but some nice structure.
We entered Nebraska near Benkelman and made a couple stops to watch the system grow.
The winds at one stop were quite strong. I had to drive my tripod legs into the ground to keep it from blowing away.
By eight, we pulled into an old weigh station that looks like it hadn’t been used since the 90s. The storm wasn’t moving fast and we got a couple of nice lightning strikes.
When the sun started to go down, a rainbow formed.
We stayed till the sun set and then went to Runzas for dinner. I managed to resist eating so late. Our spot for the night was the Cobblestone Inn in McCook.
I barely had time to download the photos before I was ready for at least seven hours of Zs.
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