Tuesday 13 May 2014

2014 Day 1 - LHR to DFW via ATL

Myself and Chris were treated to a couple of rumbles of thunder from a weak lunchtime thunderstorm over Norwich on Monday (12th), and a cheeky couple of flashes of lightning as our coach to Heathrow drove along the northern portion of the M25 - a good start to the trip perhaps?

Much of Day 1, understandably, was spent travelling to Dallas Fort Worth airport, stopping at Atlanta en-route and changing planes. The whole process was reasonably easy, including the ESTA visa waiver verification which is now largely electronic-based. Flying with Delta for the first time, was very impressed with service and large range of films available to watch etc; was a little more nervous about peanuts being handed out mind you!
Our plane was a little late leaving Atlanta, for unspecified reasons, but we landed in Dallas only about 10 minutes later than scheduled. A quick hop on the airport shuttle to the Car Rental lobby and in no time we were the owners, or hirers, of a blue Hyundai Tucson. Meanwhile some very elevated convection gave a few spots of light rain, and a mammatus show.

Keen to sort out some in-car internet in case we needed to chase eastwards early on Wednesday, we tried to find a nearby Verizon store to buy/activate a Mifi unit - but as usual the Dallas roads lead us round in circles, although there are notably fewer road works compared to the past few years, but it is still as equally confusing to navigate around the metroplex!

We managed to find a Verizon store literally as they were closing, and after pleading they were incredibly helpful in sorting out a Jetpack in 30 minutes, with a reasonable data plan. Deciding to start the storm chase as we mean to go on, we popped into the McDonald's opposite to add one to the 2014 branch tally. 2013 ended with a tally of 19 different branches in 21 days, so it'll be interesting to see how 2014 pans out...

McDonald's Chase 2014 tally up to 1 by the end of Day 1

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