An Indiana Supercell

Late yesterday afternoon a squall line blew into the area and one cell of super proportions came right across our ridge. As the gust front blew in the cell looked more and more like a supercell you might see in Texas or somewhere in the Plains states. The storm had jumped to severe levels across several counties before reaching Crawford County.


As can be seen in the second picture the cell had four tiers much like you would see in an upside down wedding cake. If it looks like a monster here then anybody who was under it when it was at severe levels a few counties back must have thought it was going to chew them up and spit them out. As the core of the storm flew overhead some slight rotation could be seen at the center. Fortunately the rotation was weak enough that nothing was able to spin out of it. It was definitely an amazing thing to watch as it approached.

The third picture shows the back side of the storm to the southwest. At least two wall clouds formed on this part of the storm but raised back up and broke apart. Dry lightning kicked out in front of the rain curtain further to the northwest. I have experienced dry lightning more than once and it is scarier and seems to be much hotter than lightning in the rain areas. Sometimes heat could be felt off a bolt if it hit close by. With this particular cell dry lightning was being spit out at least two miles in front of the rain at times. It was definitely not a good time to be caught outside with supercharged monster.
I managed to catch one lightning bolt with my camera. Some of the bolts had multiple discharges like the one in the fourth picture. I managed to capture this bolt while hand-holding the camera at 1/25th of a second shutter speed. At times there were multiple strikes all around the house and top of the hill. Some bolts had secondary branches that made them look like giant tree roots. Needless to say this was scary and we were fortunate out house didn't get hit at least once in all of this. Another cell core formed behind this one and moved up along the line. It brought more heavy rain and even more intense lightning with it.Was it a scary thing to watch? Oh yes. But my was it also an amazing thing to watch as well.

The Value of a Picture

A few years ago there was a house fire just down the road from where I live here in Southern Indiana. Being a photojournalist I covered the fire for our local paper here.When I first arrived I saw flames beginning to come out of the back of the house. The family that lived there was working to get as much as they could out of the house before it got to the point they couldn't go back in. A few minutes later the first of two fire departments arrived but the fire had a big head start. I watched as the family moved away from the house on the south side and gathered together as the flames began to consume the building. I started taking pictures with the family sillouetted in the flames and suddenly saw the couple who owned the house take each other by the hand as I was clicking frames.
The picture and the story ran across the bottom of the front page of the paper a few days later. Later in the week the couple who owned the house came to my house asking about the picture. They told me they wanted a copy of it because it told so much about that night. Even though they were watching one of the worst moments of their lives they were still together as a family. They told me the picture should get an award for it.
I've had a lot of people ask my why I take some of the pictures I do. Since I cover a lot of high school sports I've taken pictures of injured players and players right after they've suffered a season or career ending defeat. The reason is they pictures tell the story of a final outcome, a final ending.
Over the weekend I had the opportunity to see the work of and listen to James Nachtwey. A New York photojournalist who has earned more awards than any photojournalist on the planet. He has covered wars, famines, poverty and all of the things nobody should ever see. He has been to Hell and back a hundred times over and has the images to show for it.
While he showed his pictures the audotorium was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. As I watched each black and white image come up on the screen I thought about my own work and how insignificant it seemed to be after watching his images. But there was something he said that made me think differently. He said we have to keep shooting to keep telling the story. We have to keep stirring emotion and debate. Even as hard as it might be to look at the images, they were stories that had to be told and there are stories that need to keep being told.
For me I've decided I'm going to work even harder on my images. If I stop then the adventure stops.

Riverfest at Riverwalk
This past weekend the wife, the daughter and I took a little trip to some old stomping grounds of mine down to Clarksville, Tennessee. I had spent a lot of time there during the 16 months I was stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY with the 101st Airborne Division. I have to say, though, it has changed considerably since I was there last.

For this particular trip, however, we had come down for the Riverfest festival at a small park called Riverwalk. It's an area that stretches along the Cumberland River and has a nice setting to just take a load off. At this festival there was plenty to keep you busy and lots of music of all kinds. There was even a special kids section with lots of different activities for them as well.
Like to dance? There was plenty of room for that. You could dance in the grass, on the sidewalk, on a hillside, in front of the stage, even in the street if you could find an empty one. One Latino band had hips moving back and forth like a California earthquake.











I'm sure the crew of this towboat appreciated the sounds and sights that came with the festival after seeing nothing but miles and miles of river bank.








The band Raposo drove 18 hours from Long Island New York to come to perform at the festival and they brought the house down in almost a literal sense. The band had people up dancing and rockin' and rollin' through every song they played.







You could say that Raposo literally rocked up a storm. Even Mother Nature like the show so much that she provided the light show as a border-line severe thunderstorm blew up to the south. Lightning exploded all over the sky as the band cranked out song after song. Unfortunately she got so into it that the show had to be shortened because of a danger of the stage tent being blown over, as well as a lightning possibly bolt landing in the middle of the stage (now that would have made a REAL picture). By the way...you can find out more about group of New Yawkers at www.raposomusic.com.

RIVALS

Like most other places in the country, in sports you have your big team rivals.County against County, one side of town to the other. One side of a country to the other. One country to another country. Who knows, someplace out in the universe there may be one planet against another or an entire galaxy against another.
This particular post, however, is about a rivalry I saw last week between two school volleyball teams. You might think it would be in basketball or football but in this case it was two powerhouse volleyball teams taking center stage. I'll first begin with two pictures.

This is the match between Floyd Central and New Albany, two intercounty schools in Southern Indiana. Going into this match New Albany was undefeated and Floyd Central had suffered one loss. New Albany was ranked second in the state in their class while Floyd was unranked, well at least not in the top ten.

Just before their match together both teams got into their respective huddles. Both teams knew what this match was going to be like. It was going to be a war for a lot of bragging rights, and it also could very well play into the hands of who would eventually come out as conference champions.

From the very first toss of the ball it began. Volley after volley, spike after spike, dig after dig. Hammers were coming down on both sides of the net. Bodies hit the deck both on and off the court.

For two hours it continued until a decision was finally reached. The unbeated New Albany Lady Bulldogs had suffered their first defeat. The Floyd Central Lady Highlanders win propelled them into a #7 ranking, still behind New Albany but now they were getting the respect they had worked for. The post season tourney is now only a month away and it is highly probable the two will meet again. The hard part for Floyd Central now is to hang on to that respect they have worked so hard to get.

Labor Day Save

Today is Labor Day and most of us have probably been out grilling steaks, sitting on the beach, slugging a beer and just taking the day off with our feet propped up.

Just up the road from here this afternoon a group of firemen I know had their Labor Day interrupted with some heavy laboring to do as a large home caught on fire. This group of guys

took their off day to risk both life and limb to save a house from becoming a big pile of black ashes. It was a dangerous situation as a lot of heat and hot gases had built up inside and threatened a sudden ignition.

In this picture you can see the firefighters quickly getting on the roof. The purpose is to get the windows open to let those gases out. The ladder in the upper part of the picture is so they check to see if the upper part of the house is hot with possible fire up there. Firemen from three different departments can be seen in this picture. Living in a small county like here you learn to work together in a bad situation. If you don't then this house is nothing but a big pile of charcoal. It took firemen about an hour to get this fire under control. One fireman told me that when you got to the top of the stairs you were literally crawling on the floor to try to find your way around. The smoke had also darkened the windows with black ash.

The bedroom at this location had been gutted with flames. The big job was keeping the fire from going to other parts of the house. Another group of firemen were inside the house at the time also working to knock out the flames. By this point most of the fire has been brought control. Because of the smoke still inside the house, airpacks were still needed to work inside the house.

And here we have the culprit that started it all. Well, there's a little more to it than a set of bed springs that have been turned to black ash. You wouldn't think that something like a cordless phone would cause so much stress in a day but that's what happened here. The phone overheated and fell on the bed igniting it and then the bedroom. Flames shot up along the wall at the head of the bed and up to the ceiling. A fireman told me the drywall above the bed had become very brittle from the heat climbing up the wall. There was enough heat that vinyl siding on an exterior wall in an adjacent room to the south had melted and had pulled loose from the wall.

Fortunately through it all no one was injured, except a 20-inch television that looked like a melted candle. So just remember that today while you were taking it easy in your comfy chair there were a lot of people out there who were doing the real deal.

Eleven Miles Today

The weather was so good today that a hike was in order. Temps this morning with in the upper 50's and the sky had these poofy clouds hanging around. After having gone more than two months waiting for the heat to break I couldn't let a day like this one get by me without getting in the woods.

The day started out pretty well. I met a hiker from Ft. Wayne that was doing the entire 24-mile loop of the Adventure Trail in the Harrison-Crawford State Forest that was into his second day. This was right after I got out of my truck. He was in need of water and it just so happened I had an extra bottle that I was able to help him out with. During the spring water sources can be found everywhere on this trail but during the summer and early fall water is few and far between to find. Most of the time you have to pack it in if you're going to do more than a day. That can be pretty stressing.

I got a pretty good start and about 2 miles into jumped up a deer that didn't have time to chat. My body let me know that it had been a while since it had done anything like this. About 3 miles into it though I began to hit my stride and was feeling pretty good.

Fungus and toadstools were everywhere. The picture at the top was a massive fungus growing at the base of an old black oak tree. There were different colored toadstools as well including yellow, blue and pink. They didn't give me much of an appetite either.

I got to the Indian Creek Shelter (at left) and found a man and his two sons having lunch. The man worked at Purdue U. and noticed an interesting fact. He hadn't seen any chipmunks on the whole hike. Once he mentioned it I noticed I hadn't seen any either. I even watched for any on the way and didn't see any. Usually up see a dozen or so of the little guys with their cheeks all puffy with nuts or something. He said he believed all the heat was keeping them hidden. The squirrels had been working overtime though with lots of acorn shells on the ground. It made me wonder what the winter was going to be like.

On the way back I developed a knee problem. My meniscus ligament on my right knee had apparently become inflammed and it made going down hills a real bummer (and they're supposed to be fun). I had had the same problem in my early hikes at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. I'm certain it's from the two-month layoff. I've got plenty of ibuprofen to take care of that. I just need to get it worked up and loosened up more before the next one. Hey...gotta keep the legs movin'. We can't have any slowdowns from something like this.

Two weeks from tomorrow I start a 60-miler....and I will be ready for it. Camping right along Kentucky Lake will be a real treat. How many times do you get a chance to do something like that?? You take them as they come, especially the sweet ones.

The Flea Market

Hmmm.....where do I start???
Nuts, bolts, clothes, bits, string, crafts, meat, noodles, knives, swords, lamps, coins, coin holders, cakes, cookies, lemonade, popcorn, hotdogs, ham, bacon, shoe strings, air guns, books, jewelry, scarfs, chests, sofas, chairs, coo coo clocks, watches, golf clubs, palm readings, tools, apples, pears, tomatoes, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc............
Well that's pretty much the way it was yesterday and there was so much I can't even remember it all......
This was at the flea market in Louisville this weekend....
Oh.....go carts and go buggies and go scooters.....
The place was packed.....pretty much elbow room......
And there's even more stuff..............
Hmmm.......leather linguini?????













And we sure can't leave out those plums, peaches, and squashes..........

By the way........the cookies are already gone.......I finished the last one this afternoon......they were VERY good......