The everlasting Bertha and MOSI

Interesting weekend with now Tropical Storm Bertha, as she basically stalled out as a category 1 hurricane, not far off the coast of Bermuda. Here are some of the things said about this persistent tropical cyclone...

...BERTHA HESITATES AGAIN...
...REFUSES TO MOVE...
...BERTHA BARELY MOVING...
...BERTHA REMAINS ADRIFT...
...CATEGORY ONE BERTHA SITTING STATIONARY SOUTHEAST OF BERMUDA...
...LITTLE CHANGE IN THE MOTION OR INTENSITY OF BERTHA...
...NORTHWEST NEAR 2 MPH...

She lost much of her intensity, finally being downgraded on Saturday to a tropical storm. As of this morning, tropical storm force winds are now being felt on Bermuda, as Tropical Storm Bertha maintains strong Tropical Storm status. Well, as Bertha comes to her inevitable end... Invest 94L enters the scene with what Mikey pointed out as "a great twist". We are in agreement with the National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center that it will be regarded as tropical depression 3 by tonight. I'm fairly certain that we are looking at the birth of Cristobal.Onto other things... local weather. Well, for the past few days, the story has been in the northern plains with yet another slight risk hatching out for that area... nothing impressive. There have been some tornadoes here and there as the seasons battle out the transition.

This weekend, Mini-Dew and I went on a mother/daughter trip to Tampa. She wanted to experience "Disasterville" (click this link for more info). Well, we experienced it! We arrived shortly after lunch on Saturday to find a closed hurricane chamber (grr...) and a very crowded museum, since they were celebrating the 3rd "birthday" of "Kids in Charge", which is an interactive learning center for children to explore and learn all sorts of neat things about science. Anyways, we started out in the dinosaur exhibit which was pretty cheesy, as far as that goes... animatronics just doesn't do it for me... but we did a walk through just the same. Then, we headed up to Disasterville, where all the cool stuff was... including a VERY tough decision posed to a storm chaser...So, I chose both, since we were able to schedule the tornadoes! lol The decor inside was awesome!
Mini-Dew much appreciated the Mister-Twister dry ice gustnado. She also enjoyed the small version of the hurricane chamber that reached windspeeds of 78.6mph (a weak category 1 hurricane).Speaking of the hurricane chamber, I watched in horror as some parents of small children forced their children to scream in terror as they endured the high winds in there... awful.Why? Was that absolutely necessary to permanently scar your children, so now when the wind blows, they will shriek in terror...? I definitely don't see storm chasing in their futures. Of course... I enjoyed it... again.Then, I caught a glimpse of this really powerful button... You've heard of the "easy button"... allow me to introduce the "category 5 hurricane button". I think the NHC uses this when they are way off on their forecast for the season and need to cover themselves.That cracked me up! So we finish exploring all the wonders of Disasterville... I wipe up my drool... and we head to the high wire bike, where my fearless wonder hops on and rides across the rope like it's not suspended 3 stories above the hard concrete floor below. Then, we moved on to explore the human body... a very interesting exhibit, covering the whole kit-and-kaboodle... Mini-Dew was very interested in that whole exhibit. We spend quite a bit of time in there... then, we headed over to the "Kids in Charge" exhibit, where Mini-Dew tried out all the fun interaction, even lying on a BED OF NAILS. I couldn't resist, I had to try that one out, too. She didn't like it much, but I thought it was pretty incredible.We left there and swung by the butterfly garden, which we couldn't go into, but they had some neat flowers in the outer section (the area without butterflies...)We left there, and headed to our dinner date at the Melting Pot. While she was telling friends about the trip, she would let them know that we had plans to eat at a very expensive restaurant where you cook your own food... smart cookie to be baffled by that one. She loved it though, especially the bottomless brownies. (I didn't mind that so much myself.) Finally, Sunday morning, we got up to swim in our very nice La Quinta hotel in Brandon (the one on Grand Regency). It was gorgeous and very accommodating... one of the best LaQuintas I have ever stayed in! While we were swimming, it started to rain (no thunder), and Mini-Dew got scared... "We're getting wet!" No kidding... I hate it while that happens while I'm swimming. lol Wonderful trip!

2:55 update about Bertha:

DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT BERTHA IS JUST BELOW HURRICANE STRENGTH...WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS OF 70 MPH. THESE WINDS ARE LOCATED TO THE SOUTHWEST OF THE CENTER IN A RAINBAND THAT WILL BE PASSING OVER BERMUDA DURING THE NEXT FEW HOURS. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT BERTHA WILL REACH HURRICANE STRENGTH BEFORE CLEARING BERMUDA...AND FOR THIS REASON THE GOVERNMENT OF BERMUDA HAS ISSUED A HURRICANE WATCH FOR THE ISLAND. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING ALSO REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR BERMUDA.

Truly a come back kid...

Happy Monday!
~Dewdrop