Day Nine

From Omaha to Denver, today's trip was one of the longest single-day travels of our round-the-nation tour, 523 miles, mostly on 75 mph highways.  Nebraska is a very wide state and generally route 80 is well-maintained.

Biting off a lot of roadway.

For nearly all the 400 miles or so from Omaha to the Colorado border, the weather was as pleasant as the roadways.  For an easterner, though, 400 miles of flat, flat grassland, even with beautiful skies, can begin to grow slightly boring after the first 100 miles or so.  Mary Frances' knitting helped for a while; her iPad was a tad short of power.

Beautiful big skies, Nebraska.

 So, on those long flat drives across long flat states, the solution to boredom is CD's of Kris Kristofferson, Carly Simon and Harry Nilsson.

Field irrigators, Nebraska.

 The music took us across the state to the Colorado border...

The zoo in the sky, Nebraska.

 ...and that's when things began to change.  The blue skies became less blue and more gray.  The cumulus cloud animals became threatening thunderheads.  Meanwhile, the road underneath--Interstate 76 in the part of Colorado that fits underneath northwestern Nebraska, became a rutted, potholed, third-rate highway that should have been maintained years back.  (Who knows, maybe the tax on recreational marijuana?)

Approaching Colorado, the sky began to change...

Quickly we had something to keep our attention, which was good in a way because we had run out of Carly Simon.  What kept our attention was the worsening skies.

...becoming more threatening...

 Well before Limon, Colorado, we followed the darkening patches that grew on both sides of us, and sometimes in front of us:

...and still more threatening.

 But strangely, we hardly got wet.  It was obvious that some folks north, south and west of us were getting very wet.  And then it appeared that perhaps funnel shapes were forming.

Forming a funnel.

 We could only guess as to which cloud-to-ground connection might begin to rotate.

Getting a little scary...

Some of the clouds were so dark and so full of water and energy they looked like suspended pudding:

...and a little more so.

Finally, to our left, the twister came to life:

Finally, there she is, touching ground.

At first it was totally vertical and didn't seem very energetic, and then it did what serious twisters do, and began to twist.  We could see the debris being picked up and scattered in a V pattern.

Forming that twister pattern.

As we got closer, we shared the twister view with the rain that began to fall:

A little rain and twister nearby.

 Soon, the dark cloud that spawned it swallowed its tornado child:

Finally disappears into the mother ship cloud.

Later on, the evening news in Denver showed pretty much exactly what we saw, and showed some of the damage this little landspout tornado had caused, including exploding the glass out of several cars and taking down a farm building.  Fortunately, for most of its path there was only sage brush and dust.

Ensconced at Towne Place Suites in Denver, we met up with our son Arthur and enjoyed dinner together at a neighboring Outback Steakhouse, and made plans for our Colorado weekend together.  Sans tornadoes, we hope.