CASUALTIES OF TRAVEL: One pair of leather shoes (sole split) and a dead notebook (hopefully just an ‘old battery’ issue)
0700 – Check email; pack
0800 – Return rental car
1000 – Return to hotel via courtesy shuttle; breakfast
Saw Bill, Rob, and Martin talking business
1100 – Introduction and greetings. I soon acquire two new
jobs: MiFi diagnostic technician and [informal]
translater for our guests from Portugal and Spain.
I am reminded of my small Spanish vocabulary. Still,
we become fast friends and manage to communicate.
1200 – We depart for the Texas Panhandle, to position our
group for slim chance to see storms tomorrow.
1600 – stop at Albany, TX; we watch the last30 minutes of a local classic car competition
1630-1700 – we stroll around town and photos of its 1883 courthouse and other local attractions.
1730 – we stop at the Beehive Saloon for root beers and a dinner of standard Texas fare.
???? – we head west toward Lubbock.
???? – We stop to photograph the first of many wonderful
western sunsets
???? – We arrive at the Days Inn, Lubbock, TX
Travel: 331 miles
I left the house on time, thanks to Alfonse, my limo driver, arriving a tad early. His warm, boyish smile almost made me forget we left at 5:30 am. 45 minutes later and $60+tip poorer, I was at the terminal at O’Hare. Collecting my E-ticket, taking my two (carry-on!) bag through TSA inspection, and getting on the plane were effortless.
I passed the time waiting for the plane conversing with this young man (20-something) about such topics as the flood in Louisiana, my his to Maui the previous week, Michael Jackson, basketball, and storm-chasing.
Flight went well. Took some cloud photos; looking at them during on the flight, I thought I’d toss most of them away (due to poor quality), but changed my mind when I saw them on the computer after the Thunder-Grizzlies basketball game. (“Let’s Go, Thunder!” billboard dot the OKC landscape, by the way. They sure love the NBA here in OKC!) It was great to get aerial cloude photos; I hardly ever see clouds from and vantage point but underneath. It’s great to look at “the air up there.”. Here it is:
I had Italian food at Portfino’s (Reno & Meridian, a few miles north of the hotel), Loved the Chicken Caccitore, minestrone soup, and the tiramisu. Service was good, though I was unclear that my soup was a substitute for my salad.
After lunch, I spent some time (and money) at Shepler’s Western Wear (down the street 2 blocks from the hotel). I finally broke down and bought my cowgirl boots (to be shipped home) and a new black cowgirl hat (for the trip), I love shopping there: the selection is authentic and huge, and there are real bargains if you look hard enough. (I am concerned about the boots arriving before I return. maybe I can email Stuart and have them delivered to *his* place in my absence.)
Tried to find a high-end photo supply store (to get a 37mm UV protection lens for the JVC camcorder, but no luck. Tried the Walmart and Best Buy near McArthur and I-40, but to no avail. I will have to soap the thread on the 30.5-37mm step-up ring, to avoid another ‘stuck lens (like I experienced yesterday). “Proceed with caution ” applied here.
Dinner was the ribs and chicken combo at Charleston’s, a really nice eatery located across the street from the motel. A 5-star taste at a 3-star price!
I was in a really good mood over the Thunder advancing to the NBS Western Conference Finals. The Bulls also beat the Miami Heat (as they had during the regular season). I was thinking how cool it would be to have two talented young NBA teams (Bulls and Thunder) face each other in the NBA Finals.
RAW NOTES:
30MAY09: Chickasaw, OK – OKC – rtn home
—-C: dpt Chickasaw, OK
—-C: ar Wingate Inn, OKC – unload and say goodbyes
—-C: rtn rental vans
—-C: wash T1 van
—-C: get lunch while oil is changed for T1 van
—-C: ar OKC (Will Rogers Intl. Airport) – say final goodbyes
—-C: change to earlier, direct flight
1700C: dpt OKC
1900C: Ar Chicago (IL) O’Hare Intl. Airport
1930C: eat dinner with my ride, John N.
2300C: sleep in my own bed for the first time in 8 days
xxxx
Today actually started yesterday.
I got up early for work, drove into downtown Chicago, worked my last day in the office before vacation. Then, I walked 5km in the Chase Corporate Challenge (a race/walk to help the Chicago Food Bank and qualify runners for the national and international race bearing the same name).
My original plan was to drive home, grab a few hours sleep, wake a friend at 3 a.m. for a pre-arranged ride to O’Hare International Airport, and fly to Oklahoma City. I was still so awake from the 5K walk, that I asked my friend to take me to the airport Thursday evening. So we went!
I could not sleep in the airport, so I just waited until the check-in counters opened around 4:30 a.m., flew the first leg to St. Louis Lambert Airport. There, I grabbed breakfast at the Chili’s Too restaurant at the airport (where the waitress really had to hunt to find jalapeno peppers for my eggs). Who knew it would be so hard to find a pepper at Chili’s (where the word ‘pepper’ is all over the menu)!
From there it was on to Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers Airport. I rented a car so I could run errands. I made a run to Oklahoma University in Norman, OK (where I bought some used meteorology textbooks at a great price). Then I swung back towards downtown and continued to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. I’ve been to Oklahoma City dozens of times, but never made it to this amazing place before now.
Here’s a smattering of the 50 photos I took (at multiple exposures, making over 200 images):
(Right-click on an image and select View Image to enlarge any of these photos.)
At the end of the day I was fall-down tired, but the day was very gratifying. After putting in so many long days for other people (at work, at church, etc.), it felt really good to put in a long day for myself. My feet were tired (after the 5K walk and trapsing around the museum for 2 hours), but my spirit was filled with great memories.
The morning SPC outlook maps looked like this: 
| START TIME | START ODOM. | START LOC. |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00 CDT | ______ | Oklahoma City, OK |
| FINISH TIME | FINISH ODOM. | FINISH LOC. |
| 23:30 CDT | ______ | Bolingbrook, IL |
| ELAP. TIME | MILES TTL. | REMARKS |
| 14:30 | ______ mi | Includes 2 fuel/rest/snack stops |
We headed north to York, Nebraska from McPherson, Kansas, after meeting up at 10:30 and grabbing a leisurely breakfast at Perkins.
We are hoping for strong storms tomorrow and Friday, but I may be spending a lot of time behind the wheel, particularly if a derecho event materializes. If it does, we could end up all the way back around Chicago! (That would be a pain, since Scott and I need to be in Oklahoma City on Sunday and the Chicago-OKC run is about a 13-hour trek).
| START TIME | START ODOM. | START LOC. |
|---|---|---|
| 10:16 | 6483 | America’s Best Value Inn, McPherson, KS |
| FINISH TIME | FINISH ODOM. | FINISH LOC. |
| 16:16? | 6657 | Super 8 Motel, York, NE |
| ELAP. TIME | MILES TTL. | REMARKS |
| 6:00 | 174 | Position for Day 6 |
Today the weather was pretty washed out from yesterday’s storms. While there was a slight risk of storms into extreme southwest Oklahoma (and more into Texas), we would have been many hours away from where we’d like to start our long trek to eastern Nebraska for Thursday expected action (the next decent chance for significant storms). We, therefor, chose to not go far south from Wichita unless the potential for significant storms in Oklahoma materialized (which it didn’t). The rule of the day was blue skies, sun, and low scattered cumulus blobs dotted across the sky.
We played tourist, first visiting the Twister Museum in Wakita, OK (where one of the climactic — or is that climatic 
— scenes of the movie “Twister” was filmed). We also grabbed lunch at the Twister Cafe, across the street, where we mingled with locals like Judy, the restaurant owner. The townsfolk of Wakita are the friendliest people you could hope to meet; one wonderes how they survive so far off the beaten path. As we learned in Greensburg yesterday, it takes a special breed of people to thrive here in the Great Plains. Citizens of the Great Plains do not surrender to the forces of nature easily. They are a proud and resilient breed,
After lunch, we charged down OK 11A, jogged west, then headed south to the Great Salt Plains Lake National WIldlife Area to get some nature photographs. As we shot pictures and video of the local residents (dragonflies, various bird species (ilike sand cranes), swarming red ants, and a pair of water moccasins skim the lake surface in search of their afternoon snacks. We also took some pictures of the dam and its spillway, used to control local flooding (as we had in the area last night).
| START TIME | START ODOM. | START LOC. |
|---|---|---|
| 09:57 | no est | Days Inn & Suites, Wichita, KS |
| FINISH TIME | FINISH ODOM. | FINISH LOC. |
| 18:53 | no est | America’s Best Value Inn, McPherson, KS |
| ELAP. TIME | MILES TTL. | REMARKS |
| 8:56 | (TBA) | (TBA) |