The morning of May 23 had Alethea Kontis and I switching from one Best Western to another in Amarillo because of the total disregard of a lobby clerk who wanted to charge us more than the online rate for staying another night – even if I volunteered to make the reservation online. She clearly had zero interest in making our stay a happy one. It was all extremely stupid and made even more hilarious by her shirt featuring a character saying, “You’re confused? I’m f**** confused, bro.” But I like getting the points, so we moved across town. Such is the nomadic life.
We had a productive day otherwise – filming a chase update and running errands, among them buying weed-trimmer line to try to clean out the drain tubes for my car’s sunroof. Why? The carpets in the CR-V were soaked! I’d ruled out the AC drain as the source of the leak and, through some googling and talking to my Honda guy at home, concluded a blocked sunroof drain was the culprit. There are four drains, and only the front two were accessible, so I could only hope I got out the clog. Unfortunately, the floors remained wet for the rest of the trip.
NB: I didn’t want a sunroof when I bought this car. But to get this “trim” of the Honda CR-V, I had to accept the sunroof that came with it. This is why I have a hail shield on my roof. All that said, I really hope I can get a nice car next time without a sunroof. Honda, are you listening?
As the day progressed, we kept an eye on the chance for storms in the afternoon. We eventually met up with Bill Hark and headed north toward Dumas in the northwest Texas Panhandle.
That dust and the structure west of Dumas signified the storms becoming outflow-dominant.
West of town, about 6:30 p.m. CDT, we intercepted a line of storms on the verge of a gust-out. As oblivious cows eyed us nervously, we watched the line of storms approach, kicking up dust as it went. And then the haboob chase was on!
It was seriously challenging to stay ahead of this beast. We paused briefly on the edge of town, then navigated out (briefly stymied by a closed railroad crossing) and south, and got far enough ahead to stop for photos. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to get anything, but the danger of stopping too soon was that we’d be overtaken by the dust.
We had just a few minutes to capture the incoming haboob. It was like something out of a movie – a jagged wall of brown dust roiling forward under the undulating jaws of the blue-green storm. It swept over the gold-flecked landscape like an angry wave.
The haboob looks like a wave about to crash over us.
The storm moves over Slug Bug Ranch in Amarillo.
We navigated to Slug Bug Ranch along I-40, which is kind of like Cadillac Ranch, only a lot easier to get to. It’s situated in front of the Big Texan’s RV campground and includes, along with other upended vehicles stuck in the ground, graffiti-covered VW bugs that used to reside outside a derelict gas station in Conway. I’d photographed them there, too.
Other than the big, bright and visually disruptive streetlamps, this colorful installation made a cool foreground for photos and video of the incoming storm. Abandoned tech meets vibrant art meets the violent beauty of nature … I loved it.
The warped perspective of this multi-image panorama captures the drama of the storm.
After the worst of the dust blew through, we moved to a gas station and enjoyed a barrage of small hail, then met Bill for tasty Asian food to end the day, not all that far from our hotel.
It’s a true gentleman’s chase (as Bill sometimes calls those rare convenient storm chases) when you end up back where you started – and where you’re staying.
Click on any photo to see a larger image and start a slide show.
