Some pics from my drive around the Southwest/Midwest

As always, click for larger images. This post is a work in progress and will grow over the next few days.
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I ran through a nasty thunderstorm on the way to Oklahoma City. When I hit a rest area, I stopped to take pictures:





In the next shot, you can see tiny funnels spiraling down toward the earth just above the light.

I didn't see any of them make it, but I was driving in tornado alley so...




...I got back in my car and kept in front of the storm.


When night fell, it caught up to me again and I could see literally HUNDREDS of lightning strikes. There were so many, I broke out the camera and had time to take a lot of shots, some of which were interesting.




Well, interesting if you like blurry night photography, which I do.

I did manage to catch some lightning.




That would have been a great shot if it was in focus. :-(

The camera kept trying to focus on the windshield wipers and taking forever to get the shot. Had to set it to manual focus while driving and being buffeted by the winds. Then leave it on for about 5 second exposure and hope it got something.















I could hear that last one even at 50 MPH in the storm.

Finally it got so bad I had to stop taking pictures.

Ironically, about 45 minutes later my car got pummelled by bricks floating out of a flat bed truck. They looked like styrofoam coming out of a bag, but when they hit my car they made a tremendous smashing sound. Big gouges in the hood and windshield.



The Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma has some great paintings. Remington, Nicolai Fechin, etc.. Sadly, I forgot to take my camera. I didn't make that mistake when I went to the Museum at the












From a random field in Kansas: