The Mission Ends
I would not stay around to see the mission end. Once the instrument was airborne, there was no further purpose for our lab in the airplane hangar, and my job title became moving man and trucker. The packing went ok, but on the way home I ran into another weather condition: severe thunderstorms. Driving the broad-sided truck east on Highway 12, it was a challenge to keep it in my lane. The rain slowed me down but fortunately, the wind was not enough to blow me over. I thought about how fickle the spring weather in the Midwest could be. After weeks of steady wind, the short window of calm that permitted a balloon launch was followed by a gale force blast, perhaps to compensate and bring the average wind speed back up to the South Dakota standard.
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