may 14, 2001
close encounter of the bovine kind

The first couple days of our trip would feature a very chase-unfriendly weather pattern. The Ridge of Death shunted the jet stream well north of I-80, and during this type of pattern storms will only form around the periphery of the ridge ("Ring of Fire"). In this case, the only chance of storms would be in the upper Midwest and the Front Range of the Rocky Mts. Although there was a better chance for severe storms in the upper Midwest, we elected to head for the Front Range of the Rocky Mts since that is better territory to chase in. We met up around 2pm at Grand Island NE, and as we headed west on I-80 we could see anvil blowoff from the storms over the Rockies. We also saw storms firing way off to our north so we decided to go after these. But after driving north on US 183 for 75 miles we didn't seem to be getting any closer, so we decided to call it a day and head towards North Platte. On the way there we took a 25-mile "shortcut" through a cow pasture. Until today, I thought Hilmar had a lot of cows....

What makes our chase trips special is that every year we lose an antenna.
Ed and Shawn are blissfully unaware they've driven the past 700 miles with an antenna dangling from their vehicle.
How do you make cows grow? Easy! You water them!
These calves seemed blissfully unaware that they were in our way.
This is like what I had to put up with when I lived in that neighborhood full of little kids.
Like the neighborhood kids, the calves finally got out of the way when their mom came and chewed them out.

Go on to the next page.