105. Tornado warning

Saturday, 6 April 2019

San Antonio, Texas, USA

Grim day as I open the curtains. Dark grey cloud shrouding the tops of the Dallas buildings. Can’t see much.

Old man in lift says in a low gravelly Texan drawl to no one in particular, “Storm’s coming.”

Bloody ‘ell.

He’s not wrong.

Starts raining as soon as I drive out of the hotel garage. Starts as normal British rain. You know. Quite heavy.

But then turns into Texan rain. As I remarked in yesterday’s blog. Everything in Texas in big.

And that includes the rain drops.

Have never, ever driven in such atrocious conditions in all my life, anywhere in the world. It’s horrendous. At one point people have to pull over onto the hard shoulder you can hardly see what’s in front of you for rain. It’s just a sea of water pelting down on you. Only surprised it didn’t hail.

Having driven for 2hrs through extreme rain and constant lightning, pull over at a Starbuck’s outside of Waco for a pit stop. Order a coffee. Waitress quite taken with my English accent. She says in her slow Texan drawl, “You sound so sophisticated! Not like us.”

Yeah.

Well.

There’s a reason for that young lady. Ahem.

She also alarms me when handing over my change. There’s a tornado warning for the region.

Excellent. Just what I need.

Now we have ‘tornadoes’ in England. But the most damage they do is blow over wheelie bins and garden furniture. Having recently read an article on tornadoes in the USA, I know how devastating and deadly they can be.

Continue driving for another hour or so. Heavy, heavy rain is incessant and constant lightning continues with low, dark cloud. Am concentrating on road ahead, road behind, road to the sides of me and now looking for the start of a tornado funnel. Yeah. Great fun this driving trip. With the lightning it’s like driving with a strobe light constantly on. Like a scene out of Ghostbusters where it’s all kicking off with lightning and dark clouds.

In need of fuel but need a local’s assistance in the small matter of obtaining fuel from the pump. You have to pay first then fill up. But you have to guess an amount, and then fill up. If you need more fuel than you’ve said, you have to go back and pay again. If you need less fuel than you said, you have to go back and ensure it’s credited back to your credit card. Bit of a faff. Only US$30 to fill up with about 60 litres. Not like the UK!

Standing there filling up with fuel with lightning striking all around me. Back inside finish off paying when the petrol station gets hit by lightning which causes a short power cut. Hmmm. Near miss me thinks.

Really slow going on the interstate and visibility is down to a few metres in places. Raining so much and so hard that even with windscreen wipers on full speed they can’t cope.

Begins to ease thankfully as I turn off to have a look at the Circuit of the Americas. This is where the Formula 1 US Grand Prix is held and as I have an interest in such things assume there’s a museum to look at. There isn’t. In fact there’s nothing of interest.

But.

A few gates are open as they have a private track day. Sneak in and nip up into the grandstands followed by a quick drive around the perimeter through another slightly open gate that I’m not sure I’m meant to be going through. Quite surprising how high turn 1 is and there’s good views over the flat Texan countryside.

Continue to San Antonio. Thankfully seem to have driven through the worst of the storm and arrive in San Antonio as the sun begins to shine through the clouds. Have made it in one piece. That was quite an experience driving through a Texan storm. Never seen anything like it before. And thankful I didn’t get caught in a tornado.

Staying at the Holiday Inn Riverwalk (https://www.hiriverwalk.com/). San Antonio recommended to me by Mrs Cincinnati whilst we were travelling on the train in Ecuador. It has a narrow river flowing in a loop through the city centre. An evening stroll along the walkway is much needed and there’s plenty of restaurants to choose from. Quite a buzz and a good atmosphere with a few boats floating along the river giving tourists a guided tour.

Much better than Dallas, as was suggested by Mrs C. Thank you Mrs C! Good recommendation.

Have dinner in a fish restaurant overlooking the river. Order crab cake starter and fish main course. Crab cake arrives. It’s cold in the middle. Call waiter over and explain. Takes it away. Few minutes later manager arrives with new plate of hot crab cake, “Very sorry, Sir, we discovered the broiler had broken. I’ll take that off the bill. Here’s a new plate.”

Hang on.

You’ve given me a new hot crab cake, which is very tasty and which I’ve enjoyed eating, but you’re deducting it from the bill? Can’t imagine that happening in the UK. Can you?

Quite impressed with this American service.