Some strong thunderstorms moved through the area this afternoon. I managed to get one photo of a lightning bolt, though unfortunately, it was mostly obscured by a tree.

I also got some cool dark-sky shots as the line of storms moved in.

Forecasters are predicting more of the same tomorrow and Friday — scattered afternoon showers and thunderstorms.

Meanwhile, Space Weather forecasters are calling for the possibility of a major aurora storm sometime in the next two days. It may even be visible from middle latitudes (e.g., where I am). Stay tuned!

I finally got those last two road-trip photo galleries online. Here’s the full library of photos that are online:

Day One: Cities, deserts, and snow-capped mountains

Day Two: From the mountains to the prairies

Day Three: Wide open spaces

Day Four: Visiting Notre Dame, then shuffling off to Buffalo

Here are the overall trip statistics, not including our detour to and from Notre Dame last Wednesday:

Sun., May 18: 690 miles, 9:11 driving time (avg. speed: 75.1 mph)
Mon., May 19: 711 miles, 9:02 driving time (avg. speed: 78.7 mph)
Tue., May 20: 734 miles, 10:55 driving time (avg. speed: 67.2 mph)
Wed., May 21: 436 miles, 6:53 driving time (avg. speed: 63.3 mph)
TOTAL: 2,571 miles, 36:25 driving time (avg. speed: 70.5 mph)

Our route took us through 12 states (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York), and that wrong turn en route to Notre Dame gave us our lucky 13th state, Michigan.

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My final undergraduate semester was a bit of a letdown — I got my lowest grade since sophomore year (a B-minus in the Journalism Honors Seminar) and failed to make the Dean’s List for the first time since, again, sophomore year — but my 3.42 GPA for the semester only lowered my overall GPA from 3.55 to 3.53, which means I still graduated with honors.

Cum laude. That’s kinda nice.

I already knew that USC’s women’s golf team had won the NCAA championship, but I failed to notice previously that freshman Irene Cho — one of the athletes I tutored last semester at Student Athlete Academic Services — finished third in the country! Congratulations, Irene!

Here’s Irene with what I guess must be her third-place trophy. Her’s a nice picture of the whole team (Irene is the second girl from left). Here’s the whole team again, with their team trophy (but, uh, what’s that guy in the background doing?).

And here’s the Summer Trojan article about the Women of Troy’s victory.