A nice springtime intercept, but the best stuff came after dark

That's my explanation and I'm sticking to it!!  I headed for Culpeper this afternoon to get out from under the cold air damming wedge that gummed up northern and eastern Virginia today and wound up breaking out into sunshine by the time I made it to Lignum.  That was the good news; the bad news was that the upper level disturbance the models had forecast to come through and fire storms between 4 and 5 pm weakened and passed through further south than originally thought.  So there I was in Culpeper, twiddling my thumbs under a bright blue sky.
Patience paid off, however, as the storms over West Virginia finally crept my way.  I dithered over whether to head north to intercept a nice cell heading toward Warrenton or to head south to catch one nearing Orange.  The latter storm wound up with a severe TS warning on it and I could get to it with more daylight left, so south I went.  I scooted south on Rte 522 to a point in southern Orange county just south of the rain shaft and watched as the back edge drifted by:

Other than some CGs nothing else materialized so I dithered again over whether to follow this storm northeastward through the wilds of Spotsylvania county.  I finally decided on a route - 10 minutes later than I should have - and gave chase.  As I caught up with the back edge I began to notice that it had lifted a bit and smoothed out in appearance, evidence that it had stumbled into the cold air wedge and the convection was becoming elevated.  Lightning was still plentiful as I made it back to the barn just before full dark.
Then, this line barged in our direction:

Notice the TVS icon (purple triangle)...it passed through the area I had left only two hours previously!!  Even tho' it was fully dark I wasn't a happy camper at having missed it, but hey, it was a chase!