While travelling west through Kansas into Colorado, I heard an emergency report on the radio that a funnel cloud had been spotted in the town just ahead. I pulled into a rest area, and a warning siren begain wailing as the air filled with yellow dust. In one of the more stupid moves of my life, I left the safety of the rest area and drove directly into the storm to try and photograph the tornado. Driving through the dust storm at near-zero visibility, I had no idea where the funnel cloud was and so was unable to photograph the funnel. I was lucky: I suddenly emerged from the storm into bright sunshine; the fierce winds that had rocked my van had picked up dried weeds and left them hanging like ornaments from the power lines.

When I left the interstate to see if the storm had left any damage (and I couldn't find any), I discovered this charming old stakebed truck, which is probably still used to haul hay bales each summer. The dark clouds show the thunderstorm receding in the distance.