Great American Eclipse Roadtrip
Day 1:
An easy day of driving - 8 hours and stop at Palo Duro Canyon while still daylight; eight hours is a pretty short day of driving when I’m on a trip and trying to get somewhere.
I make camp with just enough time to take a quick drive around the park and get the lay of the land. Colored layers of sedimentary rock line the towering cliff sides - it really is beautiful and kind of ashamed that this is the first time I’ve stopped in.
Dusk approaches and hunger sets in so I make a quick fire and heat up the best quick camp meal known to man: Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I’m not joking. The Milky Way is rising over the cliffs just to the south of where I’m camped. And a high bank of clouds starts to roll in from the north. Drat!
The campsites at Palo Duro are set down in the canyon, so visibility to the horizon is poor. But flickers of light bouncing across the bottom of the incoming clouds catch my attention. Lightning. A storm. I love a good storm.
Driving up through the canyon and I can’t find the storms angle of approach permitting a single decent location. Drat again! Watching the radar (RadarScope: a must have!) I know that it’s fixing to hit with reckless abandon. My phone dings with a Severe Storm notice warning of 60 mph winds, torrential rainfall and hail just minutes before 60 mph winds starts to rock the truck, torrential rainfall obscures any view I might have, and hail starts to play musical notes across the hood and cab of my truck.
I’m not sure if my tent is still there, I’m a bit wet but I’m not electrocuted and I captured a pretty decent image - so who could complain?
I love how fluid this lightning appears on the right edge of the frame.
Now, I wonder what Day 2 is going to bring.
