June 05, 2010 – Tour 5 arrives in Denver
It’s 10:45 PM Mountain Time here in Denver. I’m sitting by the open window in my hotel room. The camera’s shutter is clicking lazily, occasionally capturing lightning in a distant receding storm that has rolled off the mountains. My stomach is full of Country Buffet. It’s going to be a good week.
My non-stop flight to Denver was mostly uneventful. Because I signed up late for the tour, my hotel reservation was somehow missed, but one quick call to SLT co-founder Dr. David Gold and I was all set.
We have a large group this time: 18 people total in three vans. There are a few others my age in the group – Justin, Hannah, and Matt – and I’m looking forward to hanging out with them. Hannah and Justin even came over from Australia; very cool.
Today we all met up with Roger and he gave us the rundown of what to expect, guidelines to follow, and so on. Roger also shared some of his outlooks for this week, and it is looking better and better.
The next three days are pretty much spelled out for us. Tomorrow we get to sleep in and we can take our time getting to the target area in eastern Colorado, and the next two days find us following the system gradually eastward into eastern Nebraska and Kansas by Tuesday. Wednesday will likely be a travel day as we get into position for the week-end fireworks that are sure to fire up around South Dakota on Thursday and Friday. Roger says the setup for the last few days of the tour is, quote, “absolutely insane”.
This is coming from a guy who has seen 488 tornadoes.
Roger would love to bag tornado number 500 this week – and I’d love to see number one.
Do a rain dance for us.
