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Traversing Tornado Alley

5/20/2016

“So, if you get into trouble, just point right at it. I mean, cars are meant to withstand the most force from the front, right? 120 mph. 140 mph. It’s best to take it head on instead of broadside or from behind because it’s not built to withstand pressure from that direction.”

At that point, Amy interrupted Dave and said, “What?!?”

Clearly, Dave had gone right back into his tornado chasing days and was excitedly telling us stories interspersed with ‘nuggets of wisdom’ since we were heading down into “Tornado Alley”. Without seeming to hear Amy, Dave then pulled out his phone and told us a few different apps to use to track the storms as they generally move east-northeast and since the roads are gridded out north and south, you need to stay below the storms as you track them so you always have ways to escape.

“Wait, wait. What did you say about the direction of pointing the car?!?”

Dave looked up at Amy and smiled a broad smile and stated, “Well, uh, I mean, that’s not going to happen but, you know, it’s good to know.” Our collective laugh broke the tension as Amy made me and the boys (read: me, again) promise not to chase storms across the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle. I looked directly at her and said we would not chase storms … without detaching the rig first. Another joke but heartfelt; we were not about to hunt for tornados across the southern US plains, but we were heading directly into their breeding grounds.

“Where are you guys?!? It’s actually moving southeast at 30 mph about midway between Dumas and Amarillo.”

Dave’s texts came fast and furious as we had been sending him pictures of rolling clouds and massive electrical storms and relayed the new set of National Weather Service warnings that were regularly coming in over the radio: potentially deadly storm … northeast of Amarillo … baseball-sized hail … seek immediate cover in first floor of strong multi-story structures … lethal hail …

“Uh, we’re at the intersection of 87 and 1913, halfway between Dumas and Amarillo….”

“Go north now.”

Based on the texts alone we would have been freaked out but we had been pacing this storm and two others just like it for the last 4 hours as we drove across northeast New Mexico and into Texas. We saw one storm’s entire development as we spent the late afternoon watching it transform into a beast that eventually dropped ping-pong sized hail just outside of Perrytown as it went on to trigger tornado warnings in Oklahoma. As we steadily angled south, it passed us to the north, but we were racing too fast across the Texas plains and slowly gained on another monster that dominated the entire view to the east. That’s when the now familiar NWS radio warnings shifted away from the beast hell-bent on punishing northeast Texas and western Oklahoma and started mentioning the monster north of Amarillo, the one directly in front of us.

The boys and I decided to stop at a four-way intersection and flyover, which gave us the option to flee in any needed cardinal direction, and just wait it out. For almost two hours we stood transfixed by a non-stop electrical show that illuminated the monster’s multi-dimensional cloud structure, arced fantastical spiderwebs across the face of the clouds, erupted violet and red hues deep in it’s various bellies and shuddered and vibrated bolts in that air-searing way that stays imprinted in your retina long after you have blinked the image away. We eventually saw the reassuring appearance of the moon with a good chunk of the constellations and stars that make up the ‘winter hexagon’ emerge from the monster’s flank off to our west which promised a break in the weather but our gaze was still transfixed on the light show.

Finally, and with Dave’s blessings via bursts of texts with attached and updated radar images, we meandered east towards the monster and Lake Meredith, our boondocking spot for the night. For an entire afternoon and evening we had been skirting on the edge of a series of storms and luckily we were on the back edge of this one. The back edge that saw the beauty in the monster as the sunset revealed its gorgeous tropospheric plumes above rainbows brilliant in the growling darkness churning across the earth. Falling asleep we were fortunate to never feel its wrath.

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Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

5/6/2016

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If you haven’t had the opportunity to visit the Yucatan area, I would highly recommend a visit to this beautiful peninsula within Mexico. Not only is it a stunning beach location on what is known as the Mayan Riviera, it is also a region full of so much culture and geological wonder. While a large number of Americans fly to Cancun and never leave their fancy resort and explore, we departed Cancun as quickly as we could and based ourselves out of a small fishing village called Puerto Morelos for the first week of our visit. Puerto Morelos was recommended to us by friends and it was exactly what we had hoped for, muy tranquilo, more local than not, and lots of overall ambience.

While the Mayan Riviera is known for its calm turquoise sea, we were reminded again that this is an El Niño year which resulted in some windy and rainy weather this spring. Having just spent six weeks in sunny Nicaragua we welcomed the clouds and cooler weather and headed inland to explore some different cenotes (definitely read Grant’s Powerpoint on ‘Cenotes and Mayans’ to give you a better overall description of this geological phenomena).

On our first day visiting a cenote, it didn’t take long to notice the absolutely crystal clear water we were swimming in and the many scuba divers moving around underneath us exploring and then disappearing. What we soon found out was that all of the 10,000 different cenote entrances in this region are linked underground through different waterways. And if that’s not crazy enough, the fact was that I soon signed up to go scuba diving with Grant in one. That it had been more than twenty years since my PADI course (and the last time I had actually gone scuba diving) did not stop me from taking advantage of this amazing opportunity. With awesome support from my husband, some quick review online of PADI rules, and very reassuring encouragement from Grant, off we went to scuba dive in the Dos Ojos Cavern and Cenote. I am thrilled to say that it was just as amazing as I thought it would be, really just like the photos in National Geographic. Grant and I were gliding along in the dark waters with our guide in an underwater cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by our flashlights that were allowing us to see up to 200 feet in front uninterrupted. This was a world of wonder that I am so very happy I was able to experience with Grant. Luckily two days later, all four of us had an equally cool experience exploring a different cenote Rio Secreto, which was a river running through a dry cave completely underground. Equipped with headlamps, wetsuits, and helmets, Ryan, Grant, Ethan and I forged our way through yet another spectacular geological location.

Our amazing exploratory field trips during the day were followed by an evening of browsing the boutique shopping stalls at the town plaza, discovering a delicious restaurant, taking a salsa dance class, or listening to some live music in Puerto Morelos. One evening we found an amazing jazz trio and our wise son Grant suggested we “get a drink and listen to some music.” So, banana milk shakes and sweet jazz it was, and some very fond memories of our amazing week in Puerto Morelos.

In week number two we headed westward across the Yucatan exploring Mayan temples and visiting beautiful colonial towns and cities along the way (Grant also included a great blog on Mayan temples that is worth checking out), Whether taking a tour of the highly renovated Mayan temple of Chichen Itza or biking around the ancient city of Coba, the grandeur, beauty, and complexity of the Mayan temples and former cities never failed to amaze me. Similarly, the colonial town of Valladolid, the cultural center of Merida, and the old fortress town of Campeche all offered different insight into the rich and varied history of this region. From stories of warding off pirates at the forts of Campeche to learning about the uprisings and caste wars that existed between the Mayans and the Spanish colonists, the history is so much more complex and complicated then what I learned growing up, and, especially, what many of us know today about the country that shares our southern border.

I would be hard pressed to try to capture all of our wonderful moments of this trip into one blog so instead will give you an insight into one evening in Vallodolid….. We finished eating our delicious dinner consisting of locally seasoned cerdo (pork) on freshly-made corn tortillas with pickled onions while looking out over the main town square. The lights capturing the beautifully built Cathedral de San Gervasi completed in 1570 and the sounds of a band, reminding me of childhood days listening to Desi Arnez’s band featured on “I love Lucy”, radiated from the town plaza. It was Sunday night in Valladolid, the night they close off the main street to car traffic and open it up to dancers. On our walk home, we couldn’t help but join the slowly growing number of dancers in the streets. While we didn’t have quite the same smooth dance moves as the Mexican couples, Ryan, Grant, Ethan and I practiced our salsa moves under the stars.

It’s moments like these that make me realize time and again how fortunate I am in life. I have an amazing husband and two wonderful boys who all are enjoying this year of travel and the crazy cacophony of diverse experiences we are sharing together as much as I am. We have many fantastic moments combined with some very average ones, a few scary experiences here and there, and lots of good conversation and quality time together that have given us memories that will last a life time.

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Traversing Tornado Alley

Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

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