So, what do you do when you come home and you can’t get online because the phone isn’t working? Then, the electricity goes out? You blog old school.
Yesterday was all kinds of eventful. It rained and rained and rained all day (more than 5″, according to Jack next door). While walking to my car after work, it was pouring so hard that I got soaked to the skin. Yuck. One of my coworkers, who lives near me, had gotten a call from her husband, telling her that Hwy 46 was closed west of my turn-off, due to flooding. There were also several bad wrecks. (One was by the Belgian horse farm, for those playing along at home. That’s a treacherous section of road that floods frequently.)
I opted to take the back way, by turning off at Sale St. in Ellettsville. That way, I’d avoid Ratliff, which was completely under water. Most of the rest of the back roads are up high, more or less following ridgelines, so they were in pretty good shape. I had to go through a few spots of standing water (the worst was in front of the Ellettsville grade school and on Hardscrabble Rd, right before Hwy 43), but nothing bad until I got to Spencer itself. Hoo-boy! I’d guess that there was about a foot of water on Morgan St. (Hwy 46).
Once I got through town, the highway was fine until I got to Patricksburg Rd. Which was, indeed, closed. I could tell, from the highway, that there’d been flash flooding, but that most of the water had receded. There was just one section of the road that was under running water, but it was only a couple of inches deep, and not running very fast. I decided to risk it, and went around the barrier, to the mental accompaniment of Judas Priest’s Breakin’ the Law. There was debris everywhere, and it was slow going, but I didn’t have any trouble. Fish Creek was a little scary, because it was up to the bottom of the bridge, but it was passable. Whew!
I hate driving in any kind of rain, so I was relieved to be finished with that whole ordeal. I was looking forward to checking my email, then watching Survivor. My phone was out, though, so I couldn’t get online. Then, half-way through Survivor, the electricity went out. Hrmph. I stumbled around, looking for a working lighter, then lit a bunch of candles. I figured the electricity would come back on soon (it frequently flickers off when there are high winds, but comes back on quickly). An hour and several pages of writing later, the electricity was still off, so I gave up and went to bed.
What a craptacular day! Its only saving grace was that the peepers returned last night. The wind kept me awake most of the night, but whenever there was a lull, I could hear the peepers peep-peep-peeping their little hearts out. Spring is here, with a vengeance.
And, I do mean vengeance. I didn’t wake up to parts of my neighbor’s barn in my yard this time, but several pieces of sheet metal sheathing were ripped from his construction trailer, ending up against my fence. They made a wicked noise last night when they were hurtling about. He spent a good portion of the morning reattaching them and fixing the damage. Other than that, the only real damage here was to the driveway. I walked next door last night, to call SBC about my dead phone line, and the condition of the driveway was unbelievable. I’ll have to go take pictures of it later today, because it’s pretty spectacular.
