In May of 2016, I packed up the Subaru and set to wanderin' over 3,300 miles through West Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. Here are some 35mm shots from that trip.
New Mexico
Marfa, TX
Colorado
West Texas
Ouray, CO
New Mexico
West Texas
Target, Marathon, TX
Prada Marfa
New Mexico
Colorado
West Texas
Earlier this month, I went to see my sister in St. Louis where she lives and works as a biomedical researcher at Washington University. As a post-doc, she's neither a student nor the big boss, working with an M.D. fellow plus two lab techs and a couple of undergrads.
In this case "lab" refers not to a room but a group of people conducting research and experiments under the direction of one person, Jeff. On tenure-track with the University, he's also a pediatric oncologist, is married and has four kids. Apparently, "intense" is the word that describes him best. I got a quick, firm handshake in passing, and he asked if my sister was putting me to work. I assured him it was best that I didn't touch anything.
While Jeff's lab is generally focused on developing treatments for childhood leukemia, they're actually working on a range of ever-changing experiments. Turns out it's not always as simple as saying, "This lab does cancer, and that lab is working on diabetes." It's more like, "Hey, I wonder what that gene does – let's see if we can find out."
Jeff's lab occupies two bays in a long room where many other labs are conducting their own research. My sister said the labs on their floor are all generally conducting research related to pediatric cancers, but not exclusively.
When you walk in, there's no mistaking that science happens here. It almost felt like the room had been staged by a TV set designer: beakers of bright liquids, test tubes, microscopes, latex gloves, shelves of chemicals and so forth. Turns out they actually use that stuff.
My sister has been a scientist for a long time, and at virtually every family dinner she is asked to dumb down what she does so that we, her family, might understand. We don't. In fact, that was #10 on a list entitled, "You know you've worked in a lab too long when" that was tacked up near her desk. I'd love to describe to you what she does, but I don't know. Something with genes and DNA. Something with leukemia in children. Oh, and there are the mice.
"Sir, is that camera sterile?"
My sister took me over to the "mouse house," which was a few buildings over from her lab. Before you get to the mice, which are used as human analogs for all kinds of different research, one must first get suited up in a hairnet, mask, gown, gloves and shoe covers. Next, we each went into a little room where air jets blew off whatever dirt and contaminates happened to be clinging to us from the outside world. Accidentally exposing these mice to something could potentially ruin or delay a lot of research. I'm not a scientist, but even I know that's bad.
We took an elevator down to the room where my sister's mice were kept. Those dimly lit hallways reminded me of any number of Doom-like video games where you walk around abandoned government facilities waiting for hideous aliens or science-experiments-gone-wrong to jump out at you. I took the safety off my rocket launcher and waited. All clear.
REDROOM
The red light in the mouse room caught me off guard, but my sister said it's used because mice don't see red, and it just looked dark in there to them. However, mice are nocturnal, so the clicking sound of mice feet on plastic emanated from the shelves around us. Oh, and the smell. I'd been warned about that, and it truthfully wasn't as bad as I imagined.
She showed me the mice. I held a mouse. She also showed me a hairless baby mouse, whose translucent skin revealed a small drop of white milk in its belly. Cool. Oh, but they weren't white mice – I thought that was strange. If I understand correctly, the mice are used to gather cells and inject DNA, seeing what effect specific genes have, if any. I remember my sister saying long ago that she never wanted to work with mice, but I guess you can get used to anything.
So yeah. Science. It's happening all the time. And while raising money for cancer research is common and expected, even well regarded, most people probably don't have a clue of what it entails. According to Shaina, "Everything in science is expensive." I don't doubt it.
In the time I spent with her in the lab, I don't know how many single-use pipette covers she went through. The pipette itself costs a couple hundred dollars, and they're everywhere. Then there are the microscopes, centrifuges, refrigerators and freezers of various sizes, vent hoods, computers, compressors and tanks of liquid nitrogen. Not to mention the small items like notepads, pens, lab coats (that no one wears), boxes of rubber gloves, and various stands, holders and containers. Nearly everything in there is specialized and therefore costs more than you'd think it should.
Research takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of smarts, and it takes a lot of stuff. That's why Jeff spends so much of his time applying for grants – something very few people enjoy doing. Experiments that go well and garner positive results are often written up as papers that will hopefully be published in scientific journals. One problem is that if another lab publishes a paper on the same thing you're working on—say, a specific gene—that usually means you're finished. They got to it first. All that work down the drain. On to the next thing.
So if you ever wondered what cancer research looks like, here's a glimpse. If you ever wondered what your ten-dollar donation amounts to, not much. Not that ten-dollar donations don't add up to make an important difference, it's just that no one will be naming a hospital wing after you. A box of gloves, maybe. Or a specimen cup.
Here's the quick version of the story: on Thursday, I got an email about a piece of guitar gear I had for sale on Craig's List. The guy asked if I could come to him in downtown Dallas because he was a touring musician and didn't have a vehicle to meet me anywhere. My first reaction was, "Ugh, I don't want to drive to Dallas." My second reaction was, "Hmmm..."
Without knowing who he was, what band he played for or where he was playing, I told him I was a photographer, sent him a link to this site and asked if I could take photos at the show. He was all for it and put me on the guest list. Zak turned out to be the guitar player for Ed Kowalczyk (Co-Wall-Check), former frontman of the band LIVE. I can't say I'm a fan, but I recognize some of their songs from the radio.
I took off work a little early to get to soundcheck at 5:30. It's somewhat embarrassing, but I think I drove around House of Blues at least three times before I finally found parking. The paid lot next the venue was blocked off and I didn't have any quarters for the meters. I even considered just going home. Congenital lameness is an unfortunate disease, but I can sometimes overcome it. I finally parked in a lot beneath an overpass and went to get my ticket at will-call. No one had brought them the guest list yet, but they told me to check back in thirty minutes.
DISCLAIMER: On behalf of House of Blues, Inc., I strongly discourage the following behavior.
The HOB restaurant was open, so I went inside. I briefly considered eating or sidling up to the bar, but I didn't feel like doing either. I didn't have Zak's phone number, but I thought I might go looking for him (a quick Google search gave me an idea of what he looked like). Walking through the gift shop, I spotted the Cambridge Room in the back corner, one of the smaller rooms in House of Blues where the Ed Kowalczyk show was going to be. No one was around, so I walked in. A couple sound guys were messing with microphones, but the room was otherwise empty.
After standing around for a couple minutes, waiting to get kicked out, a couple people who looked like they worked there walked in. One of them said something about the green room and left through the double doors to the left of the stage. Thinking Zak might be waiting back there, I followed at a safe distance.
Nobody's home
The green room was empty, but I heard music farther down the corridor. Down a few steps and through a door, I found some musicians sound checking on the main stage. At this point, I really expected to get kicked out any second, so I got out my camera. At least I could get a few shots before some bouncer dragged me out in a headlock.
A few different stage hands walked by while I was shooting. I smiled and nodded, trying to make it seem like I was supposed to be there. They smiled and nodded back and kept walking. After a few minutes, I decided to stop pressing my luck and went back to the Cambridge Room.
When I came back in, an employee who hadn't been there before was standing in the back by the bar. "Where'd you come from?" "Oh, I've just been wandering around," I said and quickly tried to change the subject. "I'm looking Zak, one of the musicians – do you know where he is?"
He pointed to the sound guy, Mike, and said that he was the only person from the band who was there at the moment. I introduced myself to Mike who said, "Oh, okay. You've got some time to kill, but feel free to hang out." Sweet. I picked a seat along the wall and waited while the sound guys tried to get the reverb working on the microphones.
Ed and Zak came in a half hour or so later. I'd left the gear I was selling in my car, so after introducing myself to Zak, we decided to handle the deal later. I sat back down and took a few photos during sound check. A couple women were escorted in at one point. I never learned exactly how they'd come to be there, but it was one of their birthdays. I got the feeling that they had maybe won a contest or something to be there. They had this kind of hushed awe or nervousness about being there. I had just walked in.
After running through a few songs, the guys said 'hi' to the two women and left to get something to eat, Zak once again suggesting we do the Craig's List deal a little later. They went out the back, but I left through the front doors. Just outside the Cambridge Room, there was already a line of people waiting to get in. It strikes me now how strange that was – it was still two hours until showtime, and the room was standing room only; no seats to claim by getting there early. Whatever makes people happy, I guess.
Zak and Ed heading to dinner. They didn't ask, and I didn't follow.
I walked around outside for a little while but didn't see anything interesting and headed back to will-call for my ticket. They now had the guest list, but I wasn't on it. Thankfully, Zak had given me his number, and a few texts later, I was in.
Not being familiar with the band LIVE, it took me a while to understand that this show and tour were for the 20th anniversary of the album Throwing Copper. Ed and Zak, the only musicians on stage, were going to play the album through, in order, to backing tracks and videos.
As might be expected with a 20-year-old album, the crowd seemed to range from late 30s to early 50s. Online, it had said that the show was sold-out, and that appeared to be the case. By the time the show started, it was packed. Jammed up against the side wall, I met a married couple who were interested in my conspicuously sized camera. Had I been hired by the club or was I just an overzealous fan? I was glad to be able to say I knew someone in the band.
When the show got started, I had my super-wide lens mounted to get some crowd shots. But it was only part-way through the first song when a security guy in a yellow shirt tapped me on the shoulder. "Do you have a photo pass?"
I didn't. And that was that. It turns out that Zak actually had put me down to get one, but I didn't know I needed it and therefore didn't ask. So after all that, I didn't get to shoot the show, and I didn't sell my gear. I stayed for a couple more songs, but LIVE isn't really my thing. And being stuck in a back corner with a heavy backpack is even less my thing. Still, I had a good time, all things considered. It was certainly more of an adventure than my Friday night would've been otherwise.
Even before I was a photographer, I recognized that cameras are this amazing pass to do things you couldn't otherwise get away with. Why is that guy lying on the sidewalk? Oh, he's got a camera. What's that guy doing backstage? Oh, he's a photographer. Trespassing? Oh, sorry, I was just taking pictures.
I'm not a bold person by nature, but I'm learning by degrees. And Friday's experience only served to reinforce the possibly dangerous axiom that not all closed doors are locked. I'm all for breaking rules and getting into trouble as long as it's not immoral or illegal. "Normal" is just so incredibly boring, you see. And it's everywhere all the time.
I hesitate to call this an adventure. I'm not sure I've really had one yet. But I'm working on it.
Day two of storm chasing began around noon when Bill and Mike picked me up in the Wal-Mart parking lot across the street from AT&T Stadium in Arlington. Our late start was due to a meeting Bill had that morning combined with the target area only being three hours away near Texarkana. We were heading to the jungle.
Flying by radar in southwestern Arkansas
"The jungle" is the nickname chasers give to areas, such as Arkansas and Missouri, where roads are lined with trees, making storm chasing both more difficult and more dangerous. Many of the chasers we'd met the day before had stayed the night in Kansas, and we could see from their GPS locations that they were assembling in Illinois. Later that afternoon, we would all watch live footage of the deadly Illinois tornado before it was sold to news networks around the country.
Getting our bearings under darkening skies
Texarkana was at the very southern end of the yellow blob on the radar that indicated the best chances for tornado activity. Speeding along small back roads in southwestern Arkansas, we encountered plenty of rain, lightning and wind, but no tornadoes.
As on the previous day, we were live streaming our chase via a web cam on the roof of the vehicle that was protected by a plastic dome. Due to a wiring issue, the wiper on the dome wasn't working, which caused ongoing grief as the rain obscured our picture. By the time we stopped at a Wal-Mart so Mike could run in and buy a new fuse, the severe weather in that area was pretty much finished.
Basehunter footage of the April 9 tornado in Illinois
As we began making our way back to the Metroplex, Mike just happened to check some other chasers' live video feeds exactly as the Illinois tornado was on the ground. One of the videos was being streamed by Scott Peake and Kevin Rolfs of Basehunters, whom we had met up with the day before. Apparently, that van load of European tourists were getting their money's worth. As I took the photo above, I joked that I had gotten my photo of a tornado. None of us knew at the time that two people would die as a result of the tornado we were watching.
Making our way back to Arlington
Soon thereafter, the rain had stopped, the sun was out and we were half-way home. Running on around four hours of sleep and having spent the last two days in a car, I was looking forward to getting home at a reasonable hour, cooking some dinner and probably vegging out to something on Netflix. But the best laid plans of mice and men do often go awry.
About an hour and a half from where I'd parked my car, Mike got word that a possible tornado had passed through Longview, Texas. While the tornado would have been long gone before we could get there, they wondered if there had been any storm damage. Due to their partnership with Minuteman Disaster Response, they weren't just chasing storms, they were there to help after the fact.
I didn't want to go. I mean I really didn't want to go. I was tired and hungry, and there was Netflix to be watched. But I didn't have a vote, and they didn't ask. Somewhere near Mount Pleasant, we took a hard left toward Longview while I grumbled to myself in the backseat. So much for my plans. It didn't help that I was already worried about my car getting towed, and our detour only made the feeling worse.
Downed power lines in Longview, Texas on April 9, 2015
When we arrived in Longview, Bill called the local police and the county to offer assistance. I only heard his end of the conversation, but I gathered that their response was, "Thanks, but we have it under control." Undeterred, Mike navigated us through town, turning here and there in search of damage. I tried to stifle angry sighs and head wagging in the backseat, which, unfortunately, everyone who knows me can well picture reading this. I thought, are we really driving around a town at random, in the dark, hoping to be useful?
But before long, we came across what looked like mulch that had been spilled onto the road. Turning onto smaller and smaller roads, we eventually came across what Bill and Mike had been looking for. First, we saw a few small broken limbs. Then, larger ones. Then, some twisted pieces of sheet metal roofing. And then we saw a large tree with its roots in the air. Driving farther down a darkened street, the only lights were coming from our vehicle and a few cars at the far end of the street.
We noticed a family standing in their driveway, and Bill called out to see if everyone was okay. They said they were, but they were worried about their next door neighbors, whose house had been more badly damaged. We parked in their driveway, and Bill headed toward the house to see if anyone needed help. He called for me to follow, but it was raining and I didn't want to get my camera wet. Instead of saying this, I shook my head and he continued on.
Standing there, I didn't know what to say or do. I wasn't scared or freaked out, but it was emotionally jarring to, in the span of about a minute, go from being self-absorbed and sulking to seeing stunned people standing in the dark outside their tornado damaged homes. As Bill walked toward the house, it immediately stopped raining, so I grabbed my camera from the back seat and began taking photos. I didn't know what to say, but now I had something to do.
Mike handed me an extra flashlight, which I began using in place of my flash, which was still in my bag and seemed to conspicuous. Bill returned from the house; no one was home. Some neighbors standing nearby said something and pointed down the street, so we made our way in that direction. We saw twisted metal, downed limbs and uprooted trees along the street but everyone seemed to be okay. In fact, people were quiet and calm as they checked on each other and tried to help.
As Bill and Mike made their way to the end of the street, someone noticed a metal bar that had been driven high up into a tree trunk, which had been snapped off just above it. Every house on that street seemed to have received at least some damage. And yet, no one seemed to need assistance. The tornado had come through at least an hour prior to our arrival, and the local response teams had everything covered.
We walked back to the car and drove slowly back the way we'd come. As we headed down the highway toward home, I perceived a feeling of disappointment in the car. They had gone well out of their way to offer assistance, but none was needed. It had been the first time they responded to tornado damage as a part of the Minuteman organization. A practice run. For me, I felt the lingering sting of a slap in the face. Those people wouldn't be cooking dinner that night, wouldn't be watching Netflix. They wouldn't be going to bed on time, and they almost certainly wouldn't sleep well when they did.
A little after midnight, my car hadn't been towed from the Wal-Mart parking lot, and I drove home with the radio off.
I met Mike Casey and Bill Ford through a friend from church who happens to be a local TV weatherman for CBS. They chase under the name Storm Warn Now, but for the 2015 season, they've partnered with Minuteman Disaster Response. According to their brochure, Minuteman is a Texas-based first-responder support team that provides advanced warning of severe weather and then first-on-the-scene help in search and rescue and emergency management coordination.
I was to be riding along in what they call their Lead Deployment Vehicle, a Ford Expedition wrapped with brightly colored radar graphics with which I was to become quite familiar in the following hours. By partnering with storm chasers, who are usually first on the scene, Minuteman can gain advance warning of potential tornado-hit areas so they can deploy as quickly as possible.
6:45 a.m. load-in at Mike's home in Willow Park, Texas.
But I just wanted to photograph a tornado. My mom and I were fans of the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers, and I've always found severe weather to be exciting rather than scary. As I would later see every time we stopped for gas or food, I am apparently not in the majority.
The price for my seat was letting Bill, Mike and Minuteman use some of the photos I would end up taking for promotional use. This led to a crash course in copyright issues and usage agreements from our production manager at work. I'd just as soon never mess with those things, but I guess it's a necessary evil if you're going to pretend to be a real photographer.
Chasing those storms a little too fast...
We left Mike's home in Willow Park, Texas at 7:02 a.m. and made our way north on I-35 toward northern Oklahoma. We were heading to an area that was projected to have a particularly high chance of tornadoes that afternoon and evening. It also happened to the be only such area in the country that day, which would lead to an entirely different natural disaster – The Convergence. This so-named phenomenon occurs when virtually every active storm chaser plays the same general area, causing traffic jams in sleepy towns and on normally empty back roads. But when there's only one option, you either take it or stay at home.
5% hatch is good, and this shows 10% hatch. It later rose to 15%.
Chasing storms turned out to be exactly like I was expecting from watching the TV show. Drive all day to get to the target zone. Constantly check the laptop for radar, forecasts and road options. Call other storm chasers, all of whom seem to know each other, to see where they are now and where they're headed.
What I wasn't necessarily expecting was how much attention we received from non-chasers. Between the vehicle wrap, the anemometer and the plastic dome protecting the web camera on the roof, there was no mistaking that we were storm chasers. I caught a lot of looks from drivers on the road and even some people taking iPhone photos from their cars. And every single time we stopped for gas or food, someone approached the truck to ask if there was a tornado coming, where the bad weather would be or if it was safe to continue on to their destination. I was asked several times myself, but all I could do was point them to Mike or Bill, who were happy to answer their questions.
"There any tornadoes comin' this way?"
By early afternoon, we crossed into southern Kansas where the action was expected to kick up that evening. One of the storm chasers Mike had been in contact with throughout the day was Scott Peake, who in recent years has become well known for consistently finding tornadoes and, in the opinion of some, getting dangerously close to them. This has lead to some amazing footage and photos that I can only be jealous of.
We met up with Scott and his chase partner, Kevin Rolfs, on the Kansas-Oklahoma border. The duo, part of the four-man chase team known as the Basehunters, were driving a 15-passenger van full of tourists who had come from as far away as England and Australia to get a glimpse of this almost uniquely American natural phenomenon. The tour company, Extreme Tornado Tours, is another venture of Reed Timmer, one of the stars of the Storm Chasers show and current web series, Tornado Chasers. With severe weather still at least a couple hours away, we followed Scott and Kevin as they took their tour group on a surprise stop in Wakita, Oklahoma, where the movie Twister was filmed.
Bill and Mike catch up with Kevin Rolfs and Scott Peake of Basehunters and Extreme Tornado Tours
Storm chasers take a break at the Twister Movie Museum in Wakita, Oklahoma
Here, as elsewhere, we were approached by locals who wanted to know if any tornadoes were headed that way. A couple kids even hugged Mike as their mom thanked him for chasing storms. Her gratitude surprised me. I'm sure there are also plenty of people who don't appreciate chasers quite so much. I almost felt ashamed to be hoping for something so potentially destructive and deadly to occur, just so I could have an adventure. But even those who live to see tornadoes are often the first ones to sound the alarm. With great, nerdy enthusiasm comes great responsibility. It's a strange tension, and one that all chasers seem to feel.
Bad news is good news
I wandered around tiny downtown Wakita for a little while, taking pictures of empty streets and dusty old buildings. Signaling me with a jerk of the head, Bill called me back to the car and we were off again, just like that. They had been watching their phones, and it looked like the weather we had been waiting for was close at hand.
A big part of storm chasing is deciding which super cell you're going to chase. Bill and Mike discussed it back and forth, looking at the radar on their phones and laptop, trying to decide which one to go after. During a brief pause at a gas station, two guys asked us if it was safe to head to Buffalo.
"Where's that?" "That way." "You should be fine, but hurry."
I wondered what they thought when, a few minutes later, we drove off in the direction they had pointed.
Darkening skies in south central Kansas
Spinning clouds moving perpendicular to the road. There weren't any road options to follow it.
A dirt road to nowhere
Bill and Mike picked the right supercell. We raced along a two-lane road with the rotating wall cloud off to our left. It looked like it could tighten up into a tornado at any second, but unfortunately, the roads didn't cooperate. We t-boned into an east-west dirt road, and for all intents and purposes, our day was finished. With the sun going down and the temperature falling, the energy in the storms were diminishing.
Another chaser, who is a friend of Bill and Mike's from the DFW area, pulled up next to our vehicle with his window rolled down. "I just filmed a tornado!" The very supercell we were chasing had produced a tornado after we'd lost track of it. Mike was happy for the guy, but disappointed for us.
After another hour or so of chasing, essentially just making sure we had exhausted all options, we called it a day and began the very long drive back home. Bill had a meeting the following morning, yet he did almost all of the thousand miles of driving that day. We got back to Mike's house a little after 3:00 in the morning. Mike offered to let me sleep in his guest room, but after a long day, my own bed was worth 30 more minutes of driving. Late as it was, tired as I was, I had a little trouble falling asleep. It wasn't adrenaline or excitement. I'm still not sure what it was. It had been a long day full on new things. And the next day would be more of the same.
Sundown in southern Kansas
Bill checks in with his wife on the long drive home