Our last day of the tour was mainly about getting back from Amarillo to Tulsa. We started with an amazing BBQ-brunch in Amarillo and continued eastward. When we reached Oklahoma city a few from the group went to see the Oklahoma City bombing memorial while I, and the tour guides, relaxed over a coffee. When we finally got back to our hotel in Tulsa we had a quick goodbye dinner before I was picked up by David, my new chase partner.
David Williams is a Tulsa-based chaser whom I never met before. We had gotten in contact through StormTrack in which I had posted an ad looking for chase partners for this week. This would be my first week ever to chase outside of a tour and I was excited to be more involved in forecasting, decisions etc. Staying and chasing with a stranger 24/7 felt like a bit of a gamble but a gamble I was willing to make. It did not take long until I realized I would get really well along with him and his wife Lisa. They turned out to be a really nice, interesting and cool couple!
Just before going to sleep on Saturday I got news from Randy (my temporary chase partner for the middle of the week) that instead of having to be back on Thursday for an important appointment he had that appointment already on Tuesday which made it impossible for us to have any chance of getting to the really promising setup in South Dakota on Tuesday. Once again I was without any good options for chasing the northern events and had a bad night’s sleep.
