Its early on a thirsty-Thursday night, and I'm finishing my last minute packing and preparation that will go into tomorrows departure to the Great Plains of the United States of America, the home of farmland as far as the eye can see and most importantly Tornado Alley.
Right now, according to many models and analysis maps, our chances of finding anything highly organized or favorable to chase are minimal for a while. We have two ways to exit Indiana tomorrow, both of which are basically geographical opposites of one another. Behind door number one, we can take the northern route, and head towards the Dakotas and eastern Montana, but stopping for rest and sleep somewhere near Des Moines, Iowa. Behind door number two, we could be trekking in the direction of the Texas panhandle and east New Mexico, stopping for rest and shut eye in southern Missouri. There is one more option for lodging, which would be in Kansas City, MO, with the goal of basically splitting the distance between the two chase able regions, and in turn making more of an educated guess as to where to travel to over the weekend.
Either way, these are all new destinations for me and I cannot wait to visit and explore. Possibilities that await us, the chasers from both Ball State and Indiana University, if there is dry weather would include the Badlands Nat. Park and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, and the Alamo or even the Odessa Meteor Crater in Texas. We will have to take a vote or decide on what to do if this should happen. Usually, people ask for good weather on their travels, however, as storm chasers we would rather have our weather be a bit more on the wet side.
In other random side notes, the classroom portion for the most part is over. We had class on Thursday and Friday of last week and also the first two days of this week, closing out this Tuesday with an exam over what we had learned the past few days. I have been here in Muncie, IN since Monday morning, and it has had its ups and downs. The past couple of days have been rough, between finding ways of entertaining myself and living with some nice guys I have only known since late last week. But the pros have outweighed the cons, and departure is quickly arriving.
I will be taking a camera and video camcorder, which by the way, thanks to the telecommunications department here at Ball State for allowing me to do so. So in other words, you can expect to get daily photographs from sightseeing and hopefully some severe weather. The video might take a while to get online, as I don't know right now as it stands how to get it uploaded to my laptop from the camera. But there will be something on my facebook eventually.
It is looking better everyday for media coverage of our chase. Our professor leading the chase, Dr. Dave Call, notified us tonight that seven media sources had contacted him to get information on us and our adventures in the coming weeks. There might also be a possiblity that some local newspapers/television stations to myself will be doing a story on the trip. We will just have to wait and see. Sorry that this was such a long entry, and rather boring at that, but hopefully I will have some more exciting stories to tell, and pictures to share.
You can read up on the trip on this blog every night (hopefully), and view pictures and possibly videos on my facebook page. Thanks for reading.
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