5/20 - 5/21 UPDATE We had been counting heavily on Sunday for being our best shot of seeing action for at least a few days, and all indicators seemed to point to the eastern part of Oklahoma. On Saturday night we lodged in Ada, OK and continued to check data throughout that night and the next morning. We kept one of the rooms for Sunday night, more because we needed a phone line to continue to monitor conditions than for lodging. It has been our experience that with cell phone connections to the Internet being so undependable, it's better to get a cheap hotel room and maintain land line connectivity as long as possible. We knew that when things started popping, they would pop quickly, and when our forecasting team gave the word, we got the whole team on the road within a couple minutes. We moved north from Ada on Route 377. We knew from experience that the eastern part of the state is not a "sweet spot" for chasing. Cell connections were impossible and visibility is limited there. However, a Moderate Risk cannot be ignored. We were there to chase, and that's what we did. Heading east on Route 9 near McAlester, we encountered some intense weather, including hail that was about 1" in diameter just east of the Indian Nation Turnpike. We were all over those storms, but we were lagging just a few minutes behind the tornadoes that hit (we did see the tornado damage in Dustin). We had a real good opportunity to catch one on the ground near Ashland... we headed west on County Road 156 while the tornado was heading east towards us from the small town of Parker. However, in the process of punching the core, weather conditions got too extreme too quickly and we retreated, never reaching the tornado. The rain, wind, hail, and lightning were too intense to battle with. We backed out east on 156 then headed to the tiny town of Kiowa for shelter. Though we tend to frown on core punching, our attitude was one of damn the torpedoes... full speed ahead! We paid the price, deciding to abort when the hail reached golfball size. We passed a number of chasers who had made the same decision, and we weren't the only ones with dimpled cars that evening. So we caught the storms and got some great footage, but missed the tornadoes. We did real well considering that we had very little visibility and basically NO tracking abilities; depending on scanner reports and warnings, as well as phoned-in remote assistance from friends and members across the country. A particular big THANK YOU to John Bender in Illinois for providing us with some strong support early in the chase. On the way "home" to Ada, we were treated to over an hour of continuous lightning from nearby supercells, making for a spectacular nightime lightshow which we stopped to photograph from Route 1. Today (May 21) we're in Medicine Lodge, KS. Sorry about no update yesterday, but after a day of chasing, we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow last night, and we slept till a very concerned maid pounded on the door and told us we had about 10 minutes to check out (10:50 am). We've been on the road since. Looks like we'll have a couple of down days (at least). We may do some off-roading tomorrow and maybe watch a movie. The land around here is great for off-roading, and we've made friends with some of the locals over the years who allow us use of their land. Nancy Bose and Brian McNoldy MESO