April 22, 1999

Date: 4/22/99
Parthers: Car 1: Jeff Basara(driver), Steve Gaddy and Eric Kemp. Car 2: Myself(driver), Brian Fehrn and Jennifer Grider
Miles: 540
Summary: We drove throughout all of NE Oklahoma. We saw a nice storm with a sloppy low mesocyclone.
The Chase: Here is Steve Gaddy's summary of that interesting day. He has a lot more detailed summary than I do from it. My only additions would be about Jeff and the trucker, Fehrn and his Ft. Lupton stories on the way home, Fehrn yelling at the locals and the tomato people in Sallisaw. On the way north that day we hit a major traffic backup, all because of a trucker in the fast lane, and an equally slow truck in the right lane. It all ended with Jeff verbally abusing the trucker on his CB when we finally passed him. The Ft. Lupon stories are just that, stories about Ft. Lupton, Colorado. The stories of Fehrn growing up in a real podunk town are always entertaining. Fehrn yelled at the large soccer mom when we were stopped at the Talequah airport. She asked me if we were chasers, and I said yeah, from OU. She then hollered to the other car with the rest of the soccer team that we were all some OSU chases, to which Fehrn screamed from about 50 feet away,"OU!" The locals all were entertaining as they told us about all the funnels and tornadoes they had just seen (Read: scud) that day. And that brings me to the final story of that day, the tomato people in Sallisaw. This is just disgusting, so remember, you were warned. At the apex of white trashiness, we stopped at the Sallisaw McDonald's for dinner, Jeff's favorite. All of the people working there were spherical, tomato shaped. They were all round, with a head for a stem. Hense, the tomato people were born. After they served us food finally, we ate and rejoiced over the chase. Fehrn got a sundae afterwards, and it looked pretty good, so I went up to get some ice cream. When I got to the counter there was nobody there. I looked back, and all the tomato people were lifting one another, and then they were throwing lettuce down each others shirts. It was repulsive. I staggered back to the table to inform the others of what was happeneing, and we died laughing. Then I went and got my ice cream, and we quickly got out of that town. This chase easily had the best stories associated with it this year.


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