Kansas, you've got a Grand Canyon, a Victoria Falls, a Mount Everest - and people from all over the

Dan Robinson

Dan Robinson

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Jan 14, 2011
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Full article here:

http://stormhighway.com/blog2016/june3016a.php

june20f.jpg

Lately, I wonder if the Great Plains region realizes what it's got.

Year after year, people journey from all over the world to see a natural wonder they can only see here. Every spring, I meet them - on "holiday" from Australia, Great Britain, France, Italy, Croatia and countless other nations around the globe. Many are repeat visitors, dedicating great amounts of their disposable income to spend weeks - even months - roaming places that most of our nation considers "flyover country".

For most storm chasers, the Great Plains is more than just a place to view the natural majesty that brings us here: it's our "happy place" - whether there are storms or not. For a chaser, there is an indescribable comfort and joy of being out on the open roads of Kansas and surrounding Plains states. Even the sunsets are worth the price of admission when the sky is so expansive.
 
Well written, and you make good points.

I've only been chasing in the plains for this year, but even I had people pull over to ask me what was going on, once even including local law enforcement. I can't think of a bad encounter I had, with exception to law enforcement trying to block the road at Dodge City. Even then I managed to avoid the whole thing.

Your point about chasers coming from far and wide was especially interesting to me, since it's something I was surprised by and I mentioned it in my blog. I met a tour group from England on May 24th day, as well as three guys chasing from Australia two days after that.
 
Dan, great article, well-written and evokes many of the emotions I have when I arrive on the Plains each year.

Thanks again for your advocacy on behalf of our community. Please let us know of any feedback or media attention that results from your piece.


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NOTE: This post mainly for new and almost-new chasers: I couldn't agree more. Having chased annually for over 30 yrs, and being a native Nebraskan who's lived in Arizona since the early 1960's....I cannot emphasize how much I NEED to get back to my Midwest every spring. My chase partner Doren Berge and I learned long ago that in order to keep our sanity during our extended Midwestern chases that on blue sky days (obviously meaning...NO STORMS within reach) that it really served us well to take stock of what types of cool things there were to do in whatever area that our last chase happened to leave us in. It sounds corny, but those wooden advertising racks full of local and regional attractions that most of the motels have near the lobbies can really be helpful in finding ways to take your mind off of the blue skies and help you burn thru a day or more of no-chasing time. For example, a couple of years ago we ended up in one of the extreme N.W. counties in Kansas bordering Nebraska, called Cheyenne County. For years we'd blasted thru there, always en-route to someplace else (usually Colorado) on a chase and a race against time, where we'd always see this sign pointing to the "Arikaree Breaks". Well, we finally found time one down day to seek out and find this place....and darn if it wasn't the COOLEST mini-grand canyon...in the middle of nowhere! It was beautiful! You could just stand there and imagine the Indian Braves on horseback.....standing there looking down on the Buffalo and game down below. We were the only ones there, and as the afternoon progressed and the sun began going lower in the sky...it turned into a photographer's dream! We drove around, exploring old broken-down farms and ranches and took video and photos of their decaying barns and cattle pens. It was as if we were the only 2 people on Earth that afternoon, it was so deserted. So totally quiet, except for the birds...it was almost surreal...a great great day that took our minds completely off of the blue skies. Last year we ended up for a couple of days in Montana....where we had never chased before. With a short string of blue sky days ahead of us....we decided to go see the "Custer's Last Stand" battlefield. I'd only read about this place in high school history class 40 some years before, and I assumed it was just going to be some old prairie grass fenced in with a plaque and a bit of a history lesson. Boy....I could not have been more wrong!! This place was HUGE....I think like 8-900 acres! The National Park Service runs it, and does a magnificent, bang-up job with it too. To give a short description of it simply would not do it it's proper justice....so I won't. But on a 1-10 scale....I'm going to give it a 10...it was that cool. And I'm not necessarily a history buff. Just know that if you DO get "blue-sky'd" near there some day in the future....consider yourself lucky, don't pout....and make the decision to GO. You won't regret it.
So...you get the idea. As I stated in the beginning...mainly I'm writing this for young and brand-new chasers. You're going to have blue-sky days and bust chases...we all do. You're not really a chaser if you haven't experience the heartbreak of a bust chase. They also say that you're really not a for-real storm chaser if you and your steady chase partner haven't tried to strangle each other or gotten into a fist fight....but that's for yet another discussion....lol. But I'm serious....you'll be a SMART chaser if you make it a point to take a few minutes and have a "Plan-B" in the back of your mind of where you MIGHT want to go or see in the event of a bust and you've got time to kill. Just glancing thru a Rand-McNally atlas the day prior to your chase or the morning before you set sail and take off.....once you kind of have an idea of where you will most likely be chasing.... you can formulate neat ideas of what features are around the particular area that you may consider going to. Oh....did I mention that I ALWAYS have a tackle box and a couple of fishing poles with me on my chases? I don't know how many times I've fished areas that I never would have considered actually driving to and making a target of for fishing. You can buy a 1-day fishing license (and usually Nightcrawlers too) at most any towns local convenience store....so you can fish legally.
I hope this long post gives you newer chasers some food for thought. America's "fly-over country" (I HATE that term) has tons of cool stuff and awesome places to check out when a nasty "bust" looms into your life. My motto about busts and blue-sky days: "Don't POUT.....just "GET OUT" (of that motel room). I just made that up...lol. But it's true....America has so much to offer....in places we wouldn't ever dream there would be. It's incumbent upon YOU to minimize the pain of the inevitable "Blue-Sky-Days" and Bust Chases!
 
Just to piggyback off Joel's post, I'd say it's important to at worst, just have a respect for where you're chasing or at best, have an actual love for the place. It makes things so much more incredibly interesting. I've said it before on here, but I love the Plains even without the storms mainly because there's so much interesting history, so many neat places that are barely in the public consciousness, and people who for the most part are extremely nice and inviting when it comes to people exploring their town or something on their land (if you ask of course). The storms add a completely different dynamic that makes chasing special, but never pass up the chance to see somewhere neat when there's nothing going on. Every state on the Plains has somewhere cool that might change your perspective on the region if you give it a go.
 
BTW, that's a wonderful article, Dan. You're a talented writer and it shows. Scrolling down and looking at the photos in there, one sign that said "Kinsley Kansas" sure caught my eye. Here's why: In the early 1970's, I had a grandparent that was getting quite old who lived in Norfolk, Nebraska...who wanted to spend a nice, warm winter with us at my family's home in Tucson, Az. For the first time, he was getting uneasy about driving his big 'ol "land yacht" Oldsmobile 98 ( a HUGE vehicle) on such a long trip (1400 miles). So, I offered to fly up to Norfolk and drive his car to Tucson while he flew to Tucson. So...I fly up and get in his Olds....and start driving. The next afternoon I come into the outskirts of KINSLEY KANSAS...and I see a bunch of people on the side of the road in some sort of pond of water, yelling and screaming with their pantlegs and dresses pulled up....lunging at things in the water. They were having a HOOT!! Remember, this is the early 70's, and I had just indulged in some "recreational tobacco" to make the drive more interesting. As you might imagine...seeing these people diving and lunging in the water kind of blew my mind. So, of course...I HAD to get myself involved! Turns out...several months earlier, there had been flooding around that part of Kansas....and what these people were in was a little area of the main river that runs thru Kinsley that was overflow from the flood....that now was finally evaporated enough to where they could get in and TRY TO CAPTURE THE FISH CAUGHT IN THERE! Some old guy yells at me that "we could sure use some help".....so....off come my shoes and I'm wearing shorts anyway, and in I go. Like I said earlier....my mind was kind of reeling anyways watching these folks, but now I could feel these huge, slimy fish thrashing and swimming wildly to avoid getting caught by the people grabbing for them. It was scary, actually. Why, I don't know...it shouldn't have been....but I didn't really like the feeling. But...I was an idiot back then as you can tell already, so I just kept at it. Finally, the thought came to me and I yelled it out loud that "we all ought to line up on one end of this little pond shoulder-to-shoulder and all march slowly in one direction...and see if we can't "herd" these fish to one end". So...that's what we did. Man....it worked great!! You could feel those big fish just flailing and flapping as we herded them along....and many of them actually jumped out of the water on the other end and onto the bank....where happy people were grabbing big handfuls of dinner!! There were some monster catfish...at least "monster" sized to me....probably 20 lbs. or more....that banked themselves. Lots of huge Carp, as you might imagine....plus a fish I was unfamiliar with being in Arizona where there isn't a lot of water and fishing. They informed me these were "White Bass"...and they were supposedly good eating. So....we all made a few more passes and called it quits. There were so many nice sized fish that were grabbed that afternoon....and I could tell that many of these folks probably were extremely glad to have these fish to eat. I could tell they were probably living paycheck-to-paycheck....and these fish meant A LOT to them. Well....I waved adios to these new friends of mine...and thanked them for an experience that I have never even come CLOSE to duplicating. I have gone thru Kinsley a few times since that day. The first few times I did not recognize the place where we "fished"...and I was kind of disappointed at that. I figured that the road was probably all new and placed in a different area from then. But one day in the last 10 yrs. I went thru Kinsley when I had some time on my hands and was alone...and I made a real effort to find the site. The good news to end this story on is that YES INDEEDY-SWEETIE...I DID finally find the exact place where the river had overflowed and created the scene of one of the most unlikely yet completely cool memories of my already full life. And sure....I know this is a long post. But....even 35-40 years later, when I hear about or see something that pertains to tiny little KINSLEY KANSAS....my mind just gets a jolt of that wonderful old memory...and I just had to share it with you. I hope at least somebody got a kick out of this old memory.
 
Good write-up, Dan!

Not to mention that many small to medium sized cities (Amarillo, Wichita, etc) have their own interesting culture (some multicultural, believe it or not), with very interesting people, yet another city next to it (say, Wichita and Salina), can be quite different in its own sense. There are small visible minorities that also have settled into some of these places. For example, Wichita has more Vietnamese people than the rest of Kansas!
 
cdcollura said:
Good write-up, Dan!

Not to mention that many small to medium sized cities (Amarillo, Wichita, etc) have their own interesting culture (some multicultural, believe it or not), with very interesting people, yet another city next to it (say, Wichita and Salina), can be quite different in its own sense. There are small visible minorities that also have settled into some of these places. For example, Wichita has more Vietnamese people than the rest of Kansas!
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I love Wichita, I have some great memories hanging out in Old Town. Saw a great local band there ("Lip Survis"), went to a couple Wichita Wingnuts games, eat on the patio at Larkspur every year that I can... Also love OKC's Bricktown and the bars/restaurants along the river walk... When we know we are going to have a couple of down days in a row, we prefer to be in/near a city like AMA, OKC or ICT; even Denver or Boulder if we're waiting for the next event in Colorado or Wyoming. It's great to sit down to a proper dinner at a great city restaurant after a few days in a row of chasing and eating out of the back of the car. Also love to spend the last night before heading home in a city; helps with the "transition" to "real life" back home in Philadelphia.




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cdcollura said:
Good write-up, Dan!

Not to mention that many small to medium sized cities (Amarillo, Wichita, etc) have their own interesting culture (some multicultural, believe it or not), with very interesting people, yet another city next to it (say, Wichita and Salina), can be quite different in its own sense. There are small visible minorities that also have settled into some of these places. For example, Wichita has more Vietnamese people than the rest of Kansas!
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Yet again, a dedicated...veteran....StormTrack member raises a great point! I should'a thought of this one myself. You bet...the Midwest has plenty of diverse cultures (man, I hate to sound P.C.) just from going from one little town over to the next. My late Grandma on their Nebraska farm spoke Czech (and of course, English too), and there are still pockets of primarily Czech-descendants that immigrated to tornado alley in the mid-and-late 1800's to take advantage of wide open farm lands being made available. One little town in southeast Nebraska near Lincoln named Wilber (just next to HALLAM...the town that almost got wiped off the map from what at the time was THE WIDEST TORNADO on record 5-22-04 until El Reno Okla 5-31-13) and they have the Czech festival there annually. But then Dannebrog...not too far away....is almost all Danish. Pretty cool, actually....to think that the years and the expansion of the country due to the automobile, etc. still allows for these pockets to exist. A few years back, chase partner Doren and I (we're cousins on the Danish side of the family) stopped in to the Danish Museum in western Iowa on a blue-sky day. It was completely bad-ass!! So yeah....there you go. There are so many ways to spend a blue-sky day or an early bust day that help keep up a disappointed, pee-oo'd chaser from being stuck in a funk for too long. Good thinking, Mr. Collura!
 
JamesCaruso said:
I love Wichita, I have some great memories hanging out in Old Town. Saw a great local band there ("Lip Survis"), went to a couple Wichita Wingnuts games, eat on the patio at Larkspur every year that I can... Also love OKC's Bricktown and the bars/restaurants along the river walk... When we know we are going to have a couple of down days in a row, we prefer to be in/near a city like AMA, OKC or ICT; even Denver or Boulder if we're waiting for the next event in Colorado or Wyoming. It's great to sit down to a proper dinner at a great city restaurant after a few days in a row of chasing and eating out of the back of the car. Also love to spend the last night before heading home in a city; helps with the "transition" to "real life" back home in Philadelphia.

You're obviously a chaser with the right idea and attitude, Jim. I'm with you....I LOVE checking out what a city or little town has to offer. If you stop and think about it....how many people would purposely make it a point to drive to some small, obscure tornado-alley town they've never heard of, stop and get a motel there for the night.... then go out and explore the town and try to dig up what cool things such as restaurants, entertainment, retail shops, etc. are there to enjoy? Unless they're nut-jobs....nobody does that. But for we chasers, the next day's forecast sometimes sees to it that we have to drop anchor overnight at locales that are not our normal fare. Depending on one's attitude....this can either be a fun experiment or a situation where you sit in the motel room and watch the clock on the wall count down the minutes. Now, I like the way you think, James. It's obvious from your post that you thoroughly enjoy tossing back a few cocktails along with a really nice meal to get yourself properly re-charged for battle the next day. Supporting the local economy like that is completely cool. Some of these little town bars and restaurants that are lucky enough to have a group of tired, hungry and thirsty chasers walk in and order meals and drinks....that makes a pretty positive difference to their day's percentages. It's a win-win for everybody. And once again you mirror what Doren and I do on our last night in the alley before we fly home to opposite ends of the country. We'll get ourselves down to the Old Market District in Omaha and have a well-deserved bottle of wine and an upscale meal. Like you, James....we've found a bigger city helps transition us to "real life" back home.


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