I don't think we're in Massachusetts Any more, Toto

Good morning! Most of you will recognize that lovely lady opening the door in the picture to your left. This year's States of Snark trip is brought to you by the fabulous Erin, and her wonderful family, who's kitchen I am sitting in right now, IN KANSAS! The room Lizzie and I am sharing is better than my apartment, and if they're not careful, and don't stop being so nice to us, I'm not going to leave.

Lizzie and I left at the hour affectionately known as "the ass crack of dawn." I was up at 4:15, and out the door by 5:15, and we were on the plane by 7 something or other. We stopped briefly in Atlanta, and then went on to Wichita, where Erin and her Mom met us. We made the exhange (I'll be visiting more with Erin's Mom later, hopefully, right now we're with her Dad and Step-Mom) and went off to our first adventure, Oklahoma! I asked Erin how far away we were from the border, and she said "about 45 miutes," and the deal was done. We drove south, crossed the border, and started looking for lunch. Braman was our first attempt, but it was more of a ghost town, and since I don't like ghost food, we moved on. We finally hit a little town called Blackwell, ate at the above pictured diner, and then started west (passing through Medford, Oklahoma, which is a wee bit different from Medford, MA). We stopped in Pratt, Kansas to get important supplies (where we experienced a dust storm, my eyes, MY EYES) and meet Erin's Grandma, who is awesome, and made me miss my Grandma (emo moment). Erin picked up her Dad's 1-ton pick up truck, which we'll be cruising in once Lizzie heads back home.

This is important. Our rental car, Mutton Maude, is a Nissan Versa with a four-cyllindar engine.

After visiting Erin's rad Grandma, we started North from Pratt to Phillipsburg, which is normally a 3.5 hour drive. It started to get darkish, and Erin called from her pick up to let us know that we were in for some weather (pictured above). There were some low lying clouds that looked like evil fingers (in snazzy gloves) which Erin informed us was a "wind-gate." We would pass through said wind-gate (and it would be windy) and then the rain would hit. Yep, that's about right. Poor Mutton Maude was shaking, being (Jimmy) Buffeted about by the heavy wind and rain, and we had to pull over for a minute to get our bearings (and we did an amazing in-car driver switcharoo--Lizzie is in charge of any injuries and blood-related trauma, and I am in charge of nature) and Erin called again and said "It doesn't do us any good to wait, because it's building on itself" (STORM CEPTION! A STORM WITHIN A STORM. A STORM ON TOP OF A STORM) and we continued, bravely, onto Greensburg, where we waited for a bit at a convenience store, as Erin's Dad was concerned about the storms maneuverings (which are complicated and SO INTERESTING! ASK ERIN!) as there was a possibility of tornado making on its back end.

Greensburg had been absolutely obliterated by a tornado 4 years ago, like the whole town, o-bli-ter-ated. They've rebulit, amazingly, but I thought it was an interesting place to wait out a tornado warning. As we watched, a storm chaser pulled up, and Erin asked him about whether it was safe to continue north, and he said that we'd be out of it in a few miles.

Foolishly, we believed him.

We got back on the road, and there was some mad crazy cloud to cloud lightening. It was non-stop, and lit up the sky like the Roman candles we didn't get to see after the Waltham Fireworks crapped out on the 4th of July. I was gobsmacked (First use of gobsmacked in states of snark?) and we watched the lightening just do its thing. At this point it was around 8. It was super dark on either side of our car, and turns out we were about to hook up with a severe thunderstorm. It was moving North, and so were we! Fancy that! There was blinding rain, fierce lightening, and us and Erin, moving along about 35 mph on the highway (so was the storm, says Erin). Erin was in pole position, and I white knuckled it as Mutton Maude shook and shimmied. We couldn't stop, as there was nothing around. We had the radio on, and then it burst out into an emergency alert bulletin (amusingly followed by this song) telling us about the stormpocalypse happening in several counties (later I asked "which county were we in?" and Erin said "the one where the storm was." Has she been secretly hanging out with my Dad?). We kept going and kept going and kept going, and then it started hailing (luckily Lizzie had bought the hail insurance for Mutton Maude) and I said, frustratedly, "Okay now you're just being an asshole," and then the hail stopped, at least.

Eventually when we reached Hays, an hour south of our destination, the rain slowed, so we hit a Kwik stop for bathroom break and comforting, comforting snacks. Lizzie took over driving, as my arms were shot, and we gunned Mutton Maude so we could make it to Erin's folks' house before the next cell hit around midnight. We made it in at 11:45. High fives all around! Now we're going to head up into Nebraska for snackage, and tonight is day one of the rodeo, huzzah!