2024--day 2

 

7 am departures suck, but we're hoping to get to western Nebraska, and despite of what the Rolling Stones told us, time isn't exactly on our side.

Got to sort of see (literally) the World's Largest Truck Stop (at least according to the sign), except it might have been in the Moors of England for all the fog.

Casey pointed out some KH waves on these clouds west of Iowa City.

It took a while, but the kids finally became aware of the gas station chain whose founder was a 13-year-old boy.  We chose to go to a different place to fill up, because it would have been interesting to have to explain why we spent so much state money there (it was for gas, I swear).

After lunch in York, NE, saw some cool roll clouds looking south. 

Most of the afternoon was spent heading west on I80, until North Platte when we went south anticipating a very favorable environment for some storms coming in from northeast Colorado.  Some cool mammatus near Wallace, NE.

As a brief aside, we've seen the plates of 47 states and D.C., and all six Canadian provinces touching the lower 48.  All we need is Louisiana, Hawaii, and North Dakota.  Oddly enough, two of those three are the last two that I need.

These are mammatus clouds from the bottom up near Culbertson, NE.

A radar snapshot.  The blue circle is us.

Left McCook hastily, as we did not want to get rolled over by this.  We headed south for northern Kansas, stopping in Norton for dinner.  Beforehand, we got to see some incredible mammatus (see the pics at the top).

Wound up driving through the tail end of the MCS on our way to Hays, KS (state #9) and was treated to an insane lightning show (at the top).

After 860 miles, that's quite enough for one day.