Tracy treated us to homemade pancakes this morning, and we sat around the breakfast table talking about our trip, and how crazy we are for taking the rabbit. They were so nice to us, it felt like leaving family again. It is a twelve hour drive to Houston from here, so We planned to leave at arround 11am. But 11 came and went, and we were still sitting at the breakfast table at 1:30 before we could pull ourselves away.

Tracy made us pancakes!	Matt before his coffee	Chattin' with the Stovers	Trace explains the little brother syndrome
Kyle	Preston just got back from a morning RBC project	Matt and the Stovers	Tracy laughs at our car
"And then the wheel just fell off!"	Trace ponders our makeshift voltage meter	"Call us if you break down before Dallas..."

We instantly regretted leaving with the top down. As soon as we left Wichita, the dashboard temperature reading jumped to 100°F. We kept our eye it and the engine temperature, and both were climbing. We weren't driving the car hard, or going up a mountain, but the heat bearing down on it made it feel sluggish. The sun was just BAKING on us. With all the windows open, and the top down, cruising around 60 or 70 the blast of hot air felt like sticking your hand into a convection oven. When the thermometer hit 120°, we flipped on the heater. It helped a bit, and the engine stopped heating up, but it was already so hot in the car, that we hardly felt the extra heat. It was the kind of dry heat that sucks the perspiration out of any exposed piece of skin. So my arms and face and legs were dry, but on my back, and even where the seatbelt strap was was soaken wet where it couldn't evaporate. Feeling dehydrated, we got a new styrofoam cooler, filled it with ice and two gallons of water for our trek south across Oklahoma.

Stopping for water, we met Jan from Rhode Island, who was so happy to find someone else from New England to talk to. She was shocked to hear that we had only just entered Oklahoma and werent planning on seeing all the national parks and streams while we were here! She told us about this great place an hour off the highway where you could hike through the park and swim in the cool stream. I was at first shocked to learn that my closed-minded-view of Oklahoma didn't include room for a national park, and secondly tempted to escape the heat and jump in. But, we were already running late and couldn't afford to add an hour to our trip to Houston. As it was, we'd've gotten there around midnight.

Crossing into Texas this red sports car pulls up along side us. I could see he was about to yell something at us, because he started rolling his window down. So, I had my camera ready for him when he motioned with his thumb over his shoulder and yelled out grinningly, "Hey! LA is THAT way!" We'd been driving due south towards Houston, nowhere close to being on the way to LA...

It's starting to get hot!	And it's only getting hotter...	As if it wasn't hot enough already...	Oklahoma City Skyline
Jan from RI points us to Oklahoma's hot spots	Storm brewnig in Texas	"Hey! LA is THAT way!"	Sky over Texas

We made good time to Dallas - only five hours, having expected six. I think of all the places I've been, Texas is unique (in one of a hundred other ways) in their artisic overuse of overpasses. I mean, LOOK at this! Only two roads are crossing each other here, and yet, the pavement is tied into a multi-ribbon bow, several layers in the air. We circled above the intersection, and awaited our clearance to land.

The bridge is out!	Texans REALLY like overpasses	Flying low over Dallas	Ozone Watch
More overpasses	It's like a maze!	Three Ways

The storm was a welcome sight, but we still had to pull off to put the top up and get some fuel. We found this old shack of a gas station that still had analog pump meters and no automatic shut-off. The people inside were just as strange. I could see the lightning and rain brewing on the horizon just ahead of us. They sky grew dark, and the wind started blowing just as we got ready to get back on the road. The remainder of our trip to Houston was a futile attempt to capture lightning on my digital camera. With a bolt every few seconds all around us, you'd think I'd only have to shoot blindly into the night to get some great shots. Although it looks like daylight in the photo below, it was going on 10:30pm and the sky was pitch black. Consistantly, a cloud would light up with a huge explosion of light, followed immediately by one or two powerful bolts shooting out horizontally, and branching out into ten different directions, towards ten different clouds across the sky. So that initial flash was my que to click the shutter. Most images came out pitch black. I got these two by leaving the shutter open for a few seconds, and shooting blindly. They are not at all impressive compared to the reality of lightning coming down all around you in every direction - even spread across the sky overhead.

Standing up to dry off	Save Ferris	Time to put the top up!	Ancient gas pump
The sky grows ominous	Time for dinner!	Lightning with a digital camera!	Lightning Strobe one the trees

We got to Simon and Jessica's place three hours early at about 10:45. I haven't seen him in so long, we ended up talking until 5am, not even realizing how late it was.