Follow the yellow brick road

Current location: Kansas City, MO

Current weather: Heavy rain 63

Miles traveled today: 463.3

Total miles traveled: 4,163.3

Today we left Guymon, OK, and I was actually pretty sad. I was sad not because Guymon is such a great place, but because as we were gassing up the truck the storm chasers were gathering for the day. You know its going to be a good severe weather day when you see the chasers in your town. In fact as I write this, there are 3 tornadoes on the ground in Texas and Oklahoma. On our way out, we did however stop in Liberal, KS, to see the official house from the Wizard of Oz.

We then played for a bit in the Munchkins playground and then we were off on our way again. I feel Nathan really got the shaft when it came to driving today. We stopped on the west side of Wichita, and by the time we were on the east side the skies opened up. It didn't stop raining the rest of the way, and most of it was HEAVY rain with quarter sized hail mixed in at times. We made it to Kansas City a little later than we expected, and on fumes as you can see from the picture, but we made it none the less!

Next up....West Lafayette, IN

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind

Current location: Guymon, OK

Current weather: Overcast 64
Miles traveled today: 35.8
Total miles traveled: 3,700.8

Well today was our work day. We had 2 days of travel to take down these towers and 2 days of travel ahead of us. This might have been the hardest day for us during these 3 weeks. We took down the two towers in about 6 hours, and we had to use the primitive way of our pulley system. Nathan and I were really wishing we had that man lift when we got to the second tower and our muscles were getting weaker. We did however have almost perfect weather.....overcast, 60 degrees, no wind....NO WIND!! That is almost unheard of out in the high plains, so we had to take advantage of it. Nathan and I also made a decision to stay in Guymon again instead of Liberal, KS because we passed the hotel in Liberal and it looked pretty dumpy. We will be hitting the road bright and early in the morning headed back for a stay somewhere in the Kansas City area.

My pictures tonight are from my favorite things on the high plains....tumbleweeds!! I named this one Tommy.

Next up....Somewhere Kansas City, KS

Going green

Current location: Guymon, OK
Current weather: Sunny 64
Miles traveled today: 448.3
Total miles traveled: 3,665

I have often wondered where someone really lives when they say that they are from the middle of no where. My question has been answered.....Southwestern Kansas. It took all my strength and will power not to gouge my eyes out from pure boredom. I also thought that when I pulled onto the Kansas Turnpike that it was some kind of a joke. I don't think anyone should ever have to pay to drive in Kansas, Kansas should be paying us! We did however stop in Greensburg, KS to see the worlds largest hand dug well. There were numerous signs along the side of the road that told us to stop, so we did. I'm sure all of my fellow weather nerds know all about Greensburg, and for those of you who don't know I will tell you. May 4th 2007 an EF5 tornado went right through the middle of town destroying 95% of the town and killing 11 people. It literally looked like some one dropped an atomic bomb on US soil. This picture was taken 12 days after the tornado from the city center just to give an idea. Almost 3 years later and the city is still in major rebuilding mode. They are not only rebuilding, but they are building all homes and businesses "green" powering the entire city by solar and wind power. The next picture is taken from the city center as well looking southwest, and as you can see many homes and businesses are yet to be built back up. The water tower is at the location of the hand dug well. We were not allowed however to go down into the well because it has been closed since 2007. I talked to the lady in the small temporary gift shop and she told us that the well is 109 feet deep and 32 feet in diameter. They are set to build the new museum this summer and the well will open back up to the public soon after.

Arriving at Greensburg and then leaving I started to realize how unlucky that town was to be dead in the path of this huge tornado. There is complete nothing in any direction yet this small town took the direct hit. One thing is for certain though, and that is that the people of Greensburg are very resilient and they will complete their "green" town. The lady in the gift shop told us...it may take 10 years but it will be done. It sure looks like they are well on their way.

Next up...Liberal, KS

Wagons West!

Current location: Shawnee, KS
Current weather: Sunny 66 degrees
Miles traveled today: 524
Total miles traveled: 3,216.7

The traveling continues after a nice week off. Last week we were supposed to go to Wisconsin, but the trip was called off because we might have more work to do up there before we take everything down. Today we started out at 8am headed for Kansas City, KS. We cut across central Illinois and started seeing signs for the Lincoln Museum in Springfield. We figured that now would be the best time of any to stop off and see what it was all about. For being the capital of Illinois, Springfield is pretty small. The sign said there were 111,000 people living there....half the size of Ft. Wayne. I did however like how easy it was to get around in the downtown area, and the buildings were very well kept and there were statues of Lincoln everywhere you turned. This picture was outside their Union Station. We then went into the museum itself and we were surprised to hear that today was the 5 year anniversary of the museum! They gave us a free book about Mary Lincoln Todd and birthday cake. The museum was very well put together, and it lead us through every part of Lincoln's life. Most of the museum, pictures were not allowed, but just seeing all the stuff was a lot of fun. They had one of his three stovepipe hats that are known to exist ( I believe the other two are in DC.)

When you walked through all the rooms there were all these life sized figures of the Lincoln family, and this one was out in the center of museum. If you look to the very far right there is a man that was a Lincoln impersonator who was there for the 5 year festivities. This last picture is of the massive White House that was in the museum for the presidential years. There were about 16 different rooms in here that showed everything from the dresses of Mary, to the assassination of Lincoln. If you are ever in Springfield and looking for something to do I suggest you see this place!

As for the rest of the trip, it was pretty uneventful getting out here. We made it just in time before the major rush hour traffic began in Kansas City! Tomorrow I hear there could be a little severe weather out in the panhandles....we'll see how that goes....

Next stop.....Guymon, OK

Home sweet home

Current location: Lafayette, IN

Current weather: Thunder 73

Miles traveled today: 446.7

Total miles traveled: 2,692.7

Yay!!! We are back from Iowa, and are now halfway done with our travels. I think I should say halfway done lightly though because our hardest trips are coming up. Today we traveled right along with the cold front and we stayed mainly in the rain. We finally broke through in Eastern Illinois. I found it funny that I experienced that same cold front 3 times in the past 2 days. As you can see our truck got very dirty traveling along the dirt roads of Iowa. It almost looks like we have a weird paint job.

This will be a short post because I'm pretty tired and need some rest. I'll be back for more fun in Wisconsin!

Next up.....Baldwin, WI

Dust in the wind

Current location: Ames, IA
Current weather: Cloudy 48
Miles traveled today: 95
Total miles traveled: 2,246

Hello all! I did it again, I thought today would be an easy day and it becomes a hard day. We made it back to our site around 9am and started working on the base of the towers. Usually they are pretty easy to take off, but when the cement was laid down it also got on the base of the towers making it almost impossible to break free. It took almost 2 hours for each base. We finished and we decided since we had a little free time for once to check out Iowa State's campus. It seemed very compact and pedestrian friendly. I took a picture of their football stadium....reminds me of IU's....puke. They also had some really weird/random statues and art things all over campus.

My focus then shifted to the severe weather that was brewing to our south. I felt pretty good about our chances when the sun came out and we began to warm up, but then the clouds came back and the north winds kicked up. The warm front seemed to be dancing right over us and eventually the cool air took over and won. In Ames the temperature was 51 degrees and about 30 miles to the south in Des Moines it was 84 degrees. I'm sorry if anyone was looking for cool pictures of severe weather....i have none :(

I leave you today with a little video from the top of our towers, enjoy!!

Next up....West Lafayette, IN!!!

I've seen fire, and I've seen rain and hail

Current location: Ames, IA
Current weather: Thunder 54 degrees
Miles traveled today: 510.2
Total miles traveled: 2,151.2

Today we left Purdue at 8:00am bound for Jefferson, IA. I was very close to calling the trip off for a day because of all the storms they were forecasted to get tonight into tomorrow. I put some of my meteorological skills to the test this morning and decided that if we could get here by 4pm we would still have a little bit of an opening to get the towers down before the rain. As we kept moving along into Iowa Nathan and I were noticing the clouds start to darken. I was getting nervous that my forecasting would be wrong and our day would be a waste, especially when we ran into quarter size hail for a couple minutes. Then out of no where a clearing appeared to our northwest and we had the window that we needed!

This picture is of a huge field fire just to the west of Iowa City, and it is also where we ran into the hail.

When we got to the farm they already had the man lift ready for us to use. We got a quick lesson on how to run the man lift and then up we went. We were a little scared at first especially with the stiff wind at the top of the tower, but we eventually calmed down and the towers came down as well. We did however have trouble with the base of the tower and will have to go back tomorrow and work on that more, if the weather gives us a break.

Here is a view from above as we take down the towers of the lone barn in the field. I really like this old barn and have taken many pictures of it when I have visited this site. Tomorrow we may have some severe weather so stay tuned for some cool weather pics!

Next up.....Jefferson, IA (round two)

The eagle has landed

Current location: Lafayette, IN
Current weather: Sunny 82
Miles traveled today: 289.7
Total miles traveled: 1,641


We made it back into Lafayette today around 2:30 and we went straight to the farm to drop off our towers and we finished our work around 4. It feels really great to be back home after a trip like that. We were gone for about 72 hours 30 of which were spent in the truck, you can imagine how good it feels to be out of there!

To celebrate my return, Lacey and I went to Maru, this is a really good sushi place in West Lafayette. We then went to Holy Thursday Mass at St. Boniface and it was such a beautiful mass. This was my first time going to church on Holy Thursday and I really enjoyed it.

Well one more day of work, most of which will be turning in all my travel stuff from this past week and getting ready for our next trip to Iowa. More adventures coming soon from the cornfields of Iowa!!! Have a great Easter everyone!

Next up....Jefferson, IA