La Junta – UnderTheThunder Storm Chasing & Weather Blog

ALL TIMES ARE LOCAL (MDT)

0300 – night bathroom run! Gotta avoid caffeine with dinner.
0400 – neighbors making noise So I can’t sleep! Transcribed yesterday’s paper chase log to this blog. Pure hell to enter WordPress entries via Safari!! (I discovered the WordPress app afterwards. This will be easier/saner going forward.)
0900 – Laundry run
1030 – return to hotel ; pack van
1035 – weather briefing: we have a chance for storms that might produce small hail and some lightning in the plains of Eastern Colorado.
1130 – lunch at Kim Lin Chinese Buffet
1230 – Depart La Junta, CO northbound
1315 – stop 2 miles south of Arlington, CO to photograph an old storm shelter
1327 – Arlington, CO – stop at rest area and photograph an outhouse. Yes, it’s a SLOW DAY!
1341 – N on CO59(?); arrive at Eads, CO to watch the sky, data updates, and toss a Frisbee around.
1530 – leave Eads on US287N, heading to an area where storm development has started.
1607 – turn onto northbound CO59
1625 – stop at I-70 for fuel, washroom visits and snacks; continue north to US36W
1707 – pass Cope, CO
1715 – turn north toward Otis,CO
1740 – dinner at Mom’s Restaurant in Otis
1830 – stop west of Otis. Our target storm has fizzled, having run out of moisture.
1900 – return to Otis; after Bill gets us hotel rooms in Yuma, we head to US34E and on to Yuma. On the way, illustrates how super cells look on radar, using a radar image of a southeast moving storm entering Illinois from near Keokuk, IA
1920 – arrive at the Nelson Inn in Yuma. Bill announces we meet at the van at 9 a.m. (MDT) due to a heavy travel day. Tomorrow appears to be our ‘big day’ for our excursion. Updated this blog
2130 – lights out

[editor’s note: entering WordPress blog entries via iPhone is pure hell. It took almost 2 hours to write this entry!]

ALL TIMES BELOW ARE LOCAL (MDT)

I’ve reverted to using paper chase logs, transcribing them after the fact. My log for 24 April follows:

0700 – wake up
0930 – update blog on hotel PC (netbook dead
1030 – pack van; weather briefing
1100 – depart Sands Hotel, Raton, NM
____ – Kmart stop; bought hand pump and inflated Bill’s football. Had fun watching our Spanish and Portugese guests toss around “a demented American fútbol” [ed.- my words, not theirs]
1130 – depart Raton on I-25N
___ – enter Colorado via Raton Pass; gorgeous snow-capped Rockies rise to our west, but there is no safe place to pull over for a photo opp. Dang!
Leave I-25 at exit 13; eat lunch after an extended search for Lee’s Ribs (which appeared closed for some time). Subway, here we come!
1323 – arrive at Model, CO; photograph the decaying cantina and supermercado. It makes me sad to see the skeleton of what was likely hub of activity, but Bill loves to photograph old buildings.
1600 – we wander south and east, to Folsom, NM and tiny Walt’s Corner, in hopes we may see some daytime lightning.
The weather is being totally uncooperative . As we wait, we feed one of my apples to a horse behind the general store and toss a frisbee with our Spanish and Portugese guests. My impression: it’s a new experience for them.
1704 – depart south on CO 389; re-enter NM a minute later, about 14 miles N of Folsom.
____ – photo stop to look over weak storm to our SE</li>
____ – continue SE to Des Moines, N
____ – double back to Colorado
1841 – head east on US 160.
1914 – angle north on CO 109 toward La Junta
2030 – dinner at Boss Hogg’s BBQ. I had the BBQ combo plate. “Yummers!” Francisco had a plain hamburger (no lettuce, no tomato, no cheese. Alberto had the lasagna. Too bad neither embraced the “Midwest Barbeque Experience.”
2134 – turn in for the evening at the Mid-town Motel. My fridge smells very stale, as if a dead animal had been stored there. Phew!

Travel: 270 miles

Tag: La Junta

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