Nearly Tornadoed

I woke up fairly early and headed out on my way to Ricky's place in Lawton, OK. I knew this would mostly be a transit day so I picked the route that I thought would be quickest, not necessarily the most interesting. Considering that I would be crossing the Texas Panhandle, I didn't really think interesting would factor into the equation regardless. On a side note, I broke the 10,000 mile mark on my bike early in the day. That means 8,000 miles so far on this trip. When I planned it out on Google Maps back before I started it said it would be 8,300 miles for the whole trip. Clearly I've taken some detours.



I took I25 south to I40 east which I followed all the way into Amarillo, TX. It was pretty boring. I was now into the prairies and farmland with not much to see. About all I did see were a lot of cops, both while still in New Mexico and after crossing into Texas. This slowed my progress a bit. After Amarillo, I hopped onto highway 287. At this point I could see a large storm off in the distance. It was south of me but I was heading southeast. I passed one very small town and heard an air raid siren (which I remember from my time in Wisconsin as a tornado warning). I looked all around and couldn't see any tornados. I was still pretty worried but just then the siren stopped so I figured I was good. I pressed on. By now the storm was directly ahead. I knew I was going to get rained on but I hoped to make it to Clarendon before that happened. I saw the sign saying that I only had three miles to go. About a mile later, the deluge started. Lightening was hitting all around me and thunder cracked overhead. When you can hear thunder over a Harley engine you know it's loud. I limped into Clarendon and stopped at a Pizza Hut, one of the first restaurants I came too. I went inside to dry off and have some lunch. Naturally, the lady at the front desk made some wisecrack about how of course I didn't want something to go, look at me all dripping all over the place. Jerk. Over lunch the storm moved away and I was able to continue my trip. I was still wet but once I got back into the sun I dried pretty quickly. I continued down highway 287 to highway 62 and into Oklahoma and Lawton without further incident.

The red X is the tornado warning town.



When I came into Lawton I called Ricky from the first gas station I came too as we had discussed before. He was going to meet me there on his Harley and then we'd ride together back to his place. It took him half an hour to find the place (and he somehow tried to blame me for being in the wrong place. What a jerk). Eventually we made it back to his place where I met his wife, Tanya, little Ricky (5 years old) and the one dog and three cats. I'll be staying here for two nights. More to follow as our exploits unfold.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Lawton,United States