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June 20, 2010

Start of Summer '10 Road Trip, Part 3: First Funnel Clouds

And now for the conclusion of my three-part blog post about my recent trip back to Wisconsin and Minnesota. I had been toying with the idea of trying to do the entire 17-hour drive back to State College in one day on Sat 5 June, because various friends who live along the way weren't around, and I didn't want to spend money on a motel if I didn't have to. But with the game of Settlers: Cities and Knights going to almost 1am on Friday night at Nathan & Laura's, I gave up on that, because if I were to go for it, I'd have to leave at 6am in order to finish the drive by midnight. Doing such a drive on 4-5 hours of sleep was simply not an option.

So as a result I set my alarm for sometime after 7am, met up with my younger brother Jake for breakfast around 9am, and didn't leave Rice Lake until 10am. I was still really tired on the drive, and made it to Osseo before I absolutely had to pull off and get caffeine in my system. I pulled off for lunch at a place called the Mousehouse Cheesehaus in Windsor, just northwest of Madison. It was a nice little place, and plenty kitschy. A perfect farewell to Wisconsin for this visit, or so I thought. :-)

By the time I was leaving about 2pm, it had just started to rain pretty hard, with a storm moving in. I drove through the line of storms and got ahead of them as I skirted the north side of Madison. Then as I was driving along I-94 toward Milwaukee, just past the split where I-39 and I-90 head south toward Rockford, I looked out my window at the storm clouds to my north, and saw a little bit of cloud hanging down from the line. I kept checking it out over the next half minute, and it kept becoming better and better defined: it was a funnel cloud! I grabbed my camera, pointed it out my driver's side window without looking, and managed to catch this in the field of view: I wanted to get some better photos, and after 2 or 3 miles there was finally an exit, just northeast of Madison, between Sun Prairie and Cottage Grove. I drove north about three quarters of a mile along County Road N to an area surrounded by fields, parked on the side of the road and snapped these photos of the first funnel cloud, which was roping out and dying by that point: After a few minutes, several more cars had pulled over in the vicinity with people watching the funnel. Then I looked a bit to the east of that funnel cloud, basically straight north of my location, and noticed the clouds rotating. So I started taking video, and took a couple photos during it: When I stopped the video I ran back to my car and drove forward about a tenth of a mile so that the grove of trees wouldn't block my view, but by that point the second funnel cloud was dying: When I called a couple friends to ask them what the radar was showing, they were very surprised to hear that I saw two funnel clouds, because the line was dying and the radar showed no rotation. But I clearly saw two rotating funnel clouds. I'd never seen a funnel cloud before (I still haven't seen a tornado), so this was pretty cool for me! I hung around for a bit longer, but nothing more developed. In any case, after I got back on the road, and started thinking of the timing of everything that happened that led to me being in the right place at the right time to notice the funnel cloud -- I just smiled to myself and said, "Thanks God, that was pretty cool."

Believe it or not, that wasn't my only run-in with funnel clouds and tornadoes on the day. I stopped for the night in Toledo, Ohio (technically in Maumee), and went to a cheap motel for which I had a coupon. First, it was a bit of an ordeal at the motel. There was one person in front of me, but the clerk was taking forever because the guy didn't have an address either on his Netherlands driver's license or his passport (apparently an address is needed in order to secure a room there). Eventually that got sorted out, and then I got my room key. By this point it had started pouring rain. The motel was a confusing complex of buildings, so I eventually drove around and found the right one. My key card didn't work though. I tried it every which way, but no dice. So I put my stuff back in my car (still pouring), and drove back to the office, waiting for the guy in front of me to get done. The clerk re-keyed the card, and I went back. Still didn't work. It was still pouring. I drove back to the office again, and this time he put me in a different room, the last room available at the cheap rate (it was also a smoking room, but all I wanted was a bed, I didn't care). This time the key worked, thankfully, so I got my stuff from my car and put it in the room. By now it was just after 11pm, and I hadn't had supper yet, so I decided I'd drive down to Wendy's to get some fast food. It was still pouring. I stepped outside my room, but in addition to all the rain and thunder, I heard a new sound: a tornado siren. So I went back in the room and flipped on The Weather Channel, and sure enough, there was a tornado warning for Lucas County, Ohio, with a tornado reported to be on the ground near Toledo. When the radar loop came on, it looked like the most dangerous part of the storm was just east of Maumee, so I decided I'd head out to Wendy's. It finally stopped raining while I was in the drive-thru, at least until the second line came through around 2am, with a lightning strike that I think hit the motel's sign next to the freeway. It was that close. I had turned on the A/C when I went to bed in the hopes that I wouldn't be awakened by the approaching line, but with how close that lightning strike was, no amount of white noise would've helped drown it out! Oh, and the motel also got a thumbs down from me for the wireless internet not working at all while I was there, and for them running out of breakfast half an hour early. But hey, it was cheap, and I was well-rested to finish the drive back to State College on Sun 6 June.

Overall I drove around 2900 miles on the trip, and didn't spend more than two nights in any one place the entire trip, not even at home. A fun and eventful but somewhat exhausting trip!

Posted by Jared at June 20, 2010 12:19 AM

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