heading out...

Made it to Amarillo without trouble on Saturday. Stopped at an electronics store and bought an external antenna for the GPS, which solved the satellite-lock problem. With luck, navigating through Dallas won't be a problem on the way back, in a week. Well, the cellphone-addict drivers will still be a problem, but at least we'll find the turns without incident.

I use an external GPS antenna on my motorcycles, which is why I didn't know this unit had a problem with its built-in antenna. If I'd known, I could have brought an external antenna from home, and that would be that. But I didn't know, and so only discovered the problem in actual use.

A friend chided my via email for not simply buying a new GPS. The thing is, I already have 5--- all the GPSes I've ever bought, going back to a first-generation GPS with a very crude black-and-white (actually grey on green) screen from over a decade ago. I used that first GPS to navigate around the Alps by car, and it worked great, for then. In fact, those older units all still work, but have serious limitations, such as only being able to load detailed maps for a small area. I now use them in localized, high-risk situations such as canoeing or rough-country hiking, where it's entirely possible for a GPS to be lost or damaged.

For a long, cross-country trip, having a compact, handheld unit with all the local streets of all of North America is very handy (so I don't have to reload the next day's maps each night). It also announces turns via a synthesized voice, so I don't have to take my eyes off the road--- a huge advantage over the early units that required that you look at the screen. I'd really hate to dump a $500 unit if a few minutes with a Q-tip and some contact cleaner will solve the antenna-connection problem, when I'm home. We'll see.

Currently, there are thunderstorms in the area and we can see virga from some of the clouds, but they're just ordinary T'storms--- nothing extreme. With so much wide open land here, I don't feel bad hoping for a supercell, as the odds of any one storm causing loss of life or property are low. The ideal storm for our chase would be a supercell in full view, in remote lands, spawning a tornado that does nothing except chew up some rangeland and scare some cows; harming nothing that won't grow back.

It's pretty quiet for now; 79F/26C and breezy, with wind averaging 22mph/35kph and gusting into the low 30's/50's. Last week's violent weather wrung out the air pretty well, and it doesn't look like any serious storming is imminent. It's luck of the draw with a storm chase--- you might spend the time and money and see absolutely nothing special. We'll just have to see how the week progresses.

As I write this (Saturday night), we don't know where we'll be tomorrow. In the AM, we'll meet, and the chase leaders will decide where the best prospects will be, and that's where we'll head. Most major storms develop after 3pm, when the sun has had a chance to heat the air to the day's maximum, so there's time with a morning departure to get to where there's likely to be storm development later in the day.

Let's see how the day develops!