Day 13: I’m so sick of driving.

Our morning started out in Rapid City, South Dakota.  The alarm went off way too early, it seemed, but we had to get an early start in order to get everything accomplished.  Half of our group wanted to see Mt. Rushmore, so we made a quick trip to the monument before heading toward our target area for the day.

My mother has always talked about wanting to visit Mt. Rushmore, so I felt so blessed to be able to go see it myself.  (Mom, I still hope you get to see it too!!)  I’ll admit, the monument Is only exciting for about 30 minutes, if that.  We got there, took a few pictures, and then felt kind of bored.  However, the day we went was perfect!  Not a cloud in the sky, so beautiful!  We had heard the day before that it was best to take pictures in the morning because of how the shadows fell… Oh, it was perfect.  Beautiful.

After that we had a long drive to Eastern Colorado.  We had a small chance that storms may fire in that area… because of the topography of the area, coming off of the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, there is normally enough wind-spin that can help produce storms and tornados.   In fact, Weld County, Colorado experiences more tornados per square mile than any other place in the world because the landscape and conditions often promote very favorable conditions for tornados.

Passed a truck that had my last name on the back.  I was pretty excited...

And so we drove.  For.  A.  Long.  Time.  And the roads weren’t always in the best shape either.  I don’t know if the ground had sunk over the years or what, but there were stretches of road that felt like we were driving over ski moguls: back and forth, so lumpy, uneven.  I had taken motion sickness medicine (as I have done almost every day on this trip) and I had my eyes on the road and I STILL gained a nauseating headache while on those roads.  Plus, we were all so sore from riding for so long the day before… I was turning into a grumpy bitch even though I was trying so hard not to.  I felt so much better for the switch-up that happened when my professor asked me to drive the van for a while.  I mean, we were still on the road, but at least I had something to do!  All these hours on the road can make a person go insane.  

Long story short, the storms fired up but died with 20 minutes of their formation.  Something was missing that kept them from developing into a strong supercell.  It only took about an hour’s time for us to realize that all our chasing would be at a loss for the night.  So instead we booked a hotel about 20 miles out of Denver.

Before the hotel, though we stopped at a nice Indian Restaurant.  I’ve never had Indian food before – to be honest I was terrified by it because I’ve heard it’s spicy.  My stomach generally doesn’t do well with spices and heat, so I was nervous.  However, I ordered eggplant cooked with onions, tomatoes, and peas.  And I’ll be honest… it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Not sure what this next week will hold for us.  Weather patterns aren’t looking great – most of the country may end up seeing sunny skies with little rain, so we may end up driving home early.  It all depends on what we decide for tomorrow.