A long first drive, heading towards promising weather

Long day today, prepositioning ourselves for anticipated heavy weather (maybe) around midweek. We left Amarillo, TX this AM (Sunday), drove through Oklahoma and into Kansas. Tonight, we're in extreme western Kansas, on the Colorado border. In about 48 hours, somewhere around here, some interesting weather should be starting to take place.

Here are some shots from today with very brief descriptions (it's late; I'm tired... ). I'll flesh this out later. =====================================================================================
The small town of Cactus, Tx, was hit by a tornado a year ago. Some debris hit the local water tower:




All over the plains, oil wells pump fossil fuel and agricultural wells pump fossil water; a testament to extreme short-sightedness. But here and there, at least a few pioneers are trying to use renewable resources:

Very empty landscape:


Jets add aerosols and CO2 directly to the midlevel air; a warming factor. But the contrails block sunlight; a cooling factor. Trying to figure out the net effect on climate drives some environmental scientists slightly nuts.

Vast openness:


Some of the roadside accommodations were a little primitive.


This cow had happier days:

Monument Rocks:
http://www.washburn.edu/cas/art/cyoho/archive/KStravel/bigrocks/pyramids.html




Ancient layered seabed:


That dark circle in the middle (this is a shot looking up) is a cliff swallow nest, dug into the soft chalk:

A whole flock was active:


And there's one of the little buggers now:



Not much else going on there...


More later!