Apocalyptic

7/12/17

This post has a really ominous title, but only because of the end of the day really, I swear! The whole day went quite swimmingly, actually, and was kind of a bit boring.

Jane and I hopped on the road sometime in late morning, since I had had a late night and more than a bit of a rough day the previous day. I wanted to maximize my time at my actual destinations in national parks before Hot August Nights, so I decided to forego any stops for the day in lieu of just driving a lot, really fast. We then proceeded to bull our way up the highway north through pretty much the majority of the Dust Bowl.

Consequently, I saw a lot of highway scenery (billboards and fields) and that’s about it. Oklahoma was grassier and less corny than expected (harr harr).

 

Yes, keep right in 181 miles.

You have my attention... this was the most interesting billboard I saw all day. But no, I didn't go get free chocolate. My mom warned me about things like that.

Occasionally they had some rocks, which was nice.

 

Ooh! A scenic overlook! (It was rocks)

I'd be a lot more interested in these if I knew their geologic history, but I don't so I could just kind of guess.

And hey, they even had a single picnic table at the entrance to the state to welcome visitors!

 

Wow!

Took me a few hours to get through that, and then that was enough of that. No time for Oklahoma’s picnic table or its grass. I had Kansas to look forward to!

 

Pictured: Kansas.

…and that’s when things turned to endless fields of corn. Kansas is one of the least pleasant states to quickly drive through. You just see corn and telephone poles and occasionally the highway dumps you out into a mostly-dead town, and not the type that is cute and fun to visit but more the type that feels like they may all just stare at you and pretend they don’t speak English to avoid actually talking to you. Those towns are really not my favorite.

Jane was still being wonderful, so I took a chance and stopped for a delicious dinner at Gella’s in Hays. Way back when in 2014, Gella’s was one of the first stops I made with my dad and Jane on my “Trip of a Lifetime Part I”, so I kind of wanted to stop there just for nostalgia’s sake. The food was as great then as it was this time! I even successfully parallel parked Jane on the street, and it only took me two tries. Last time I was here, it took my dad helping me and a thirty-point turn to get into a spot (though to be fair, last time it was also a tiny spot… this time I picked better). Yes, clearly I have learned something in the past three years of my life.

From there, things got markedly better. I was still heading north and still going through what I think was the same cornfield as I encountered at the border between Kansas and Oklahoma, but now I had entertainment! A huge storm was rolling in across the plains, and I had a front row seat. Well, it’s more like I had a back row seat, but I kept moving forward until I was in the front row I guess. Whatever, I ended up driving towards this thing for a hundred miles (literally), watching the rain and lightning get progressively more intense. It made for some great dramatic pictures.

It then occurred to me that storms in Kansas are really not something to mess around with since they tend to contain tornados.

It also occurred to me that I had been watching this storm get worse, while driving towards it, without thinking about the implications of that particular choice.

It occurred to me that I may be quite stupid.

But, being potentially quite stupid, I kept pressing on to my destination – a little town called Phillipsburg. How did I choose this as my destination? Well, I picked a town on the map that was on the way to my real destination, that was the right distance away and that had a cheap hotel available. So yeah, Phillipsburg!

Night fell and the lightning intensified more, flooding the highway with dazzling bursts of light followed by total darkness. A truck behind me kept up with every move I made but seemed unwilling to pass me, instead remaining an ominous pair of glowing eyes in my rearview mirror. Thunder growled overhead and Jane roared back in response, eating up the miles and feeling stronger by the minute. Suddenly, my ordinary boring day had become a thriller.

My hotel came into view, a welcome sight in the midst of all of the tension. I could feel the storm directly above us charging the air with static and bearing down upon the ground. As we turned into the hotel lot, the storm suddenly opened up, announcing our arrival with a massive lightning strike, a huge thunderclap, and an onslaught of pelting sideways rain.  We jetted under the hotel’s overhang and I stepped out of my monster of a vehicle to be greeted by several dropped jaws attached to several very surprised people out for a smoke break. We must have looked quite a sight, howling out of the darkness at the front of a storm like that.

I wondered if I had inadvertently become one of the Four Horsemen.

Instead of calling down the apocalypse, I went to bed because it was midnight.