Playing Cat and Mouse with thunderstorms

I stopped after the dinosaur excursion to give the bike a wash in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

When I came out of the car wash after 30 minutes, The sky was dark with a storm approaching from the west. Fortunately, I was headed east. I kept watching the dark clouds behind me, wondering if they would catch me when I stopped to camp.

Is it just me, or are the dark clouds are following the road here?

Here's the storm system I kept watching in the mirror:

Now I'm starting to see Dinosaurs in the clouds!

Then I started to realize that a bigger storm cell was ahead of me and the road was beginning to converge with its path.

Here's a glimpse at how big this cell was:

After following the road for an hour as it turned toward the storm and then away from it, a gate seemed to open up allowing the road to pass through.

Then the road turn away from the gate and into the storm, but I was able to pass just after the storm had crossed the highway.


When I arrived in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, I decided to eat dinner in a restaurant that didn't have anything on the menu that started with "Mc".
I found the TNT Family Restaurant, and enjoyed a nice meal, revelling in the thought that I had won the battle of the storms.


Then I walked outside and found this, accompanied by "impressive" thunder and lightning:

That's how I ended up at the Best Western, unloading the bike just before the bottom fell out!
:-)

Life is good.