June 8th - Standard City Illinois

By most accounts today was a bust except that I was fortunate to be in the good company of Richard Lewis and my nephew. Had I gone solo to see a whole lot of nothing, the ride would have only added to the residual disappointment from the 5th which I won't get into. Heading out, the only cell of note way out towards Quincy was dropping SE so we skoozed down 48 towards Raymond and then W to Standard City for an intercept. It was here that we observed a huge bubbling arcus cloud that was more along the lines of an elongated base versus an outflow dominate shelf. The lightning at this area was very intense so we exercised caution in getting our shots. When the excitement with this feature concluded, we dipped over to the town of Nilwood so to pick up IL 4 and head N. This was an experience in that much of the town was abandoned and many buildings in major disrepair. I commented how interesting it would be to visit here during better light not realizing till we picked up IL 4 that it was once part of the Route 66 network. When Interstate 55 was constructed and absorbed the traffic that once passed through here, it's no wonder this town pretty much dried up. Traveling N to Girard which is another town I have never visited, the main business district looks very nice but by now it was dark so I am curious if the residential areas that are out of sight bear similarity to the seemingly ghost town status of Nilwood. Further up 4 at Auburn and now dark, we headed W towards Waverly then up to New Berlin to shoot lightning on an approaching complex. The plan was to use I-72 as our escape to the E so to not get slammed by the heavy rain but timing was such that the storms collapsed on top of us. With blinding lightning all around and under an insane downpour, we had no choice but to slowly travel with it till exiting at Illiopolis so to venture S to Blue Mound. Something is better than nothing as evident by the pics and in spite of residing here yet rarely being able to get out far, it was cool to travel along historic US 66. I do hope to one day revisit this area and spend time with it.