I took today off. On my chase vacation. Dumb!
I needed it though. Over the past three days I’d driven:
- 593 miles (Home to Amarillo w/ short chase)
- 325 miles (Amarillo to Oklahoma City – w/ aborted chase)
- 610 miles (OKC to Dodge City/Cimarron)
So…1,528 miles total. None of these were a simple Point A to B trip, either.
The high number of miles per day wasn’t really the problem; I’ve done 776 miles from Queen Creek, Arizona to Colorado Springs (I was a zombie when I arrived though). It was the number of consecutive high mileage chase days that did me in, with no one to trade off driving with.
I spent the day with Aunt Vicki, whose house I was staying at, and her grandchildren. They’re a fun bunch of kids.
Ella wouldn’t speak to me for what apparently is her obligatory 15 minute grace period. Then she wouldn’t stop talking to me. She requested that I watch her do somersaults and dance around. She then demanded that I play what I guess is “House”. She didn’t think I was funny when I said that instead of the Husband, I was the Deadbeat Dad and refused to look at the baby dolls she placed next to me. Then I went for Eccentric Uncle and just talked about nothing but cats or some such thing, so she grew tired of me.
Charlie told us a lot of interesting stories when we went to pick him up from school, many of which concluded with him wanting to touch someone’s eyeball. Or his friends touching their own eyeballs, then demanding they touch his. That’s a weird phase to go through and I don’t remember doing this as a kid.
Henry is a baby, and therefore spent most of the day in Baby Prison (a folding playpen, not an actual Baby Prison please don’t call CPA). He called me “da-da”. That made me feel weird, until he called the dog “da-da”, then Vicki “da-da”. He’s just covering his bases.
This was about as close to a tornado as I got all day.
Vicki and I dropped the kids off at home with their parents later that evening, then we went and had a steak dinner. I really needed some real food after living out of the car for days.
A great ending to the day.
I found out later that evening about the Chapman tornado. Wow. The video I’ve seen of it has been incredible, and it actually bent railroad ties?! Holy crap.
I’d like to take a second to thank Vicki for letting me stay. She was very understanding about how chasing works and why I showed up around 2-3AM almost every day I was there. She didn’t even object to me calling newly adopted dog Diggle instead of Ollie (yeah, she’s an Arrow fan).
Thanks Vicki! Thanks Diggle!