...gently down the street!
It's been a bit wet around here. A few big rains and a lot of melted snow pushed the water level up — way up — to the highest level anyone has seen around here, a good three inches higher then the flood of '81, and much more spectacular than what we had last January.
High enough, in fact, to go paddling around the neighborhood in a canoe.
Alas, I didn't know any gondolier's songs. That didn't stop me from singing, though...
A romantic ride through Venice...
I could commute to work like this. I really could.
I just like this shot.
My neighbor, Chris, taking a lap around the block.
Of course, it wasn't all fun and games and photo ops; there were several tense days of pumping water as fast as we could as it rose ever and ever higher. I even went out and got new, larger hoses for my pump (which I've nicknamed "the candle" — as in, "Better to light one small candle than curse the darkness") and watching the green on the radar map stretch from here to California, knowing it was all coming our way.
We didn't suffer any damage other than water getting into the floor of the shed. The carpet's no great loss, but it'll take work to pull it out.
The rest of the neighborhood didn't all fare as well as us. Several houses on our street have basements, believe it or not, and many of those got flooded.
You can normally drive a speedboat under this bridge. Here, I don't think you could even manage a canoe.
This sculpture by the canal took on some new interpretations that I'm sure the artist never intended.
At the height of the flood, the street and the lake became one. You could paddle from one to the other without bottoming out on the curb.
Despite the destructiveness, it was still beautiful and, — dare I say it? — kinda fun. I'm sure we'd feel a bit differently if we'd sustained more losses, but we still would have enjoyed the "wow" factor either way.
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