Great Plains Storm Chase Expedition 2004

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Today is mostly a travel day.  We spent some time going from Denten, Texas to Oklahoma City, OK.  

In the morning we departed from our hotel and joined Stevel Miller for a quick lunch gathering.  Steve chased with us a bit last year and hopefully we'll be able to see him out a few times again this season.  

After departing Denten, we headed north.  I started riding with Amos Magliocco today, and at one time even drove for a time.  I'll bet Amos loves that, considering he drives by himself nearly 90% of the time he chases.  I'll be with Amos for the next eight days while Raul Benitez is visiting our group.  After that I'll be back with the Jeff, Kersten, and Chris.  I may pop in with Amos again on a few chases, just for some variety.

Our travels took us into the SPC (Storm Prediction Center), our goal was to take some time-lapse of the "Cu" crossing the sky at sunset with the WSR-88 Radars in the foreground.  But the sky cleared out, and no Cu (cumulous) clouds could be found.  We did manage to get into the SPC, which now is very restricted by security clearances and so one, but we did manage to get in anyway.  Some of those pictures are below.  Afterwards we realized a slight glitch with that procedure and were "detained" by security, but everything was fine and we were released.  

Of course, that kinda got us on edge, and when we stopped to get our hotel for the evening, the last thing we needed was more drama.  But that's what we got.  

We commonly get hotels that have travel book coupons, so that we can reduce our lodging costs.  But sometimes there is a reason these hotels offer a lower cost.  In this case, the hotel seemed nice enough, but the location (on the southside of OKC) didn't bring the best of elements to the area.  We notice a few too many sketchy persons and decided to move to a new hotel.  

We drove up I-35 north to the northside of town and finally came accross a Comfort Inn in Frontier City that was quite nice.  I (as most always) did the negotiations for the room rate.  I was able to get the price down to a fair level and managed to get ground floor level rooms.

I good night sleep was had by all, and we will surely put this one on the "remember list" as long as we can negotiate the rate again.

Sorry some of the pictures inside the SPC are fuzzy.  I took them with the flash off so as not to disturb the meteorologist.  These are more just to show we were there.  Good sunset photo though.

SPC Nerve Center	The Best Quilt ever made!
SPC - Chaser's wonderland	Weathervine shows takes the tour (yeah, Jeff we see the camera)
SPC kinda empty today, also chilly out.	But a wonderfull sunset to see at SPC

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