Day 2: Cloudy...with a chance of ribs

 Yesterday was full of adventure! There was not a lot of severe weather, but we still had some incredible experiences. In the morning we journeyed to St. Louis, MO, where we saw the famous Gateway Arch. We also stopped by the museum at the Gateway Arch and learned a little about the history of St. Louis.

After that we went to lunch at Pappy's Smokehouse for some outstanding barbeque (and the best ribs in the USA!). To quote Emily, "I always wondered why people wanted to live in Missouri, but after eating here I understand".

Following lunch, we began our journey towards Tulsa. At this point we were looking closely at some storms developing in northeast Oklahoma, trying to assess whether there was a good enough chance of interesting weather for us to rush there. There was a chance for a tornado, but it was not very promising since the storms developing were joining together instead of forming discrete supercells.

Since the chance for seeing interesting weather was poor, we instead found a beautiful spot to hike, driving over the hills and far away to get there. We went to Ha Ha Tonka State Park in the Ozarks where we saw castle ruins, a spring, a few turtles, and a natural bridge. Along with the castle ruins there was a watchtower, and we went all along it. Thomas was particularly excited to see some fish. We had to pull him away.

Our final stop was at the Tornado Memorial in Joplin, MO, where a devastating and deadly EF-5 tornado struck in 2011. The memorial impressed upon us feelings of sadness and loss, but also of hope. It is terrible that there was such destruction and loss of life, but the people of Joplin were able to band together, rebuild, and become even stronger because of it. Walking through the memorial, we were all feeling a sense of hope that our love of science and our desire to understand these powerful storms will help to prevent loss of life in the future.

At this point we were all feeling ready to eat a nice dinner and get to sleep, but fate had other plans in store for us. For our final adventure of the evening, we had to deal with the van breaking down! Personally, I think this bad luck will be balanced out by some really good luck in the coming days (hopefully in the form of interesting storms!). We already got the van fixed and are on our way to our next adventure!