Hey! What's going on?
We're getting bombarded by lightning. This is incredible!
Let's just hope they strike in front of the camera,
But man... BOOM!
Lol!
Crazy... Listen to this...
It's all around me. It's behind me it's in front of me, right of me.
I can only get so much of it.
It's gotta strike in front of my camera and I'm trying to drive.
But, What a lightning storm!
Probably getting a little too excited guys.
It's just, Non-stop!
Don't hit the car.
It's behind me!
BAM! Got the tree.
Tree is on fire.
Got the tree again!
Holy Mole!
Oh man I'm next... I'm next.... Don't touch anything metal.
Alright, we need to roll.
Usually about once a year I'll get a close strike of lightning
And today I got a lot...
I don;t even know how much I've got. I;m looking at the footage now
You already know more about the footage than I do at this moment.
The highlight was that tree getting nailed by lightning
So tomorrow morning we're gonna go see if we can find and examine that tree.
See what kind of banana it sustained. :D
If we can find it.
See the snake up there...
He went over there and he's gone.
Right now we're back-tracking and we're gonna try to find
Where lightning was striking that tree. Easier said then done out here.
Looking back at the video, the second strike...
Actually occurred behind the tree. It didn't hit the tree. It hit the ground.
So I'm gonna go back thee and try to see
where it scorched the earth, and maybe
there will be a fulgurite. Its a long shot.
I don't even know if there's enough silicon in dust to make a fulgurite.
But we kinda need to get this done as asap 'cause it's gonna get hot!
Hot as hell
Even the sign says so.
I think I photographed lightning right here.
I think I remember that little farmstead.
Yeah, I think we're on the right track.
This is where it gets a little tricky. We're now on the gravel grid.
A lot of this looks the same.
Normally on my GPS I have the slug trail turned on
Of course on this day I didn't do that.
Check out the little road runner.
There he goes!
Hey little road runner.
I see you little guy
Catch that sucker this time. Open up door!
Dang coachwhips toy with me like... Squirrels toying with yard dogs.
This road is gonna turn into mud if we don't get of it.
They're good when they're dry, but once they get wet they turn into silly putty.
better not.
Definitely didn't come through here.
Definitely did not come this way.
We found em!
I think those are them right there.
OK, here's our trees.
and right behind that tree on the right...
So we need to line up with this gate
and walk back and see what we can find.
oops. This road was not made for rental cars.
Here's our tree. It's still intact.
Big chunks of bark were blown off.
And there's several cracks running the length of the main trunk.
Looks to be pretty deep.
Here's where it caught on fire
We'll have to come back next year and see if it survives
Looks like a raccoon survived the event.
To make it's mark after the rain had stopped.
Perhaps he treated himself to some omelet here?
Here's a tarantula hawk.
These giant wasps hunt and paralyze tarantulas and other big spiders.
And then lay an egg on the spider to hatch and eat it alive.
The females are said to have one of the most painful insect stings in the world.
Because of this, most animals won't mess with tarantula hawks.
An exception is the road runner.
The second strike should be directly in line with this path.
That looks like the likely target.
It hit this... port-o-potty space thingie.
Maybe blew off this meter.
Maybe not.
This break looks to be kinda fresh.
The continuous covering of conductive metal and mesh
Likely acted like a Faraday cage.
conducting the lightning's current around the enclosed space and into the ground.
That's why there does'nt appear to be much bananas.
Here's an example of a Faraday cage protecting me from 1.2 million volts.
Generated by this Tesla Coil at the University of Kansas.
You can even safely touch the mesh on the inside of this thing.
(Phone rings) How may I help you?
Hi, my name is Hank and last night
I watched one of your units get struck by lightning...
One of your... metal... port-a-potty space machines.
...
Oh um... Ok... Um
I can relay a message over...
Ok sure may I have your phone number?
7-9-4