It Could Be Much Worse!

Well, its not nice, but it could be much much worse. We had 2 1/2 - 3 feet of water, but it was mostly drained out on its own by the time we got home yesterday. It was not sewerage, as our next door neighbors had. We hired 2 young men to haul a lot of stuff out to the curb and it was miraculously gone with the regular garbage this morning. We have a lot of things to replace, but our furnace may be saved and none of the appliances or furniture was new. Some plastic boxes floated up on the tide and then back down without tipping! Someone just told me I should make an ad for Rubbermaid.

We hope to have the bedroom and TV room downstairs usable by the time Rachel and Ben get here about July 1. But they can use the upstairs guest room for a while if need be.

There is still a little water in the basement and the Emergency authorities are saying we shouldn't flush our toilet because it might back up, so we are being creative with strategic visits to friends, libraries, etc. Friends who live above a store downtown are away for 4 days now and we are taking care of their cat and showering there.

I don't have the heart to post any pictures.

Tonight Cedar Rapids is in big, big trouble with water inundating downtown and 4000 homes evacuated. Many other cities have bigger trouble than Decorah. We just need for the rain to stop!

Almost Home

We are waking up in a motel in Davenport and will be home today. Decorah has had massive flooding since a 7 inch rain on Saturday night. The best photos are at http://theinspiredmedia.com

On Monday, our basement had 3 feet of water. It was going down yesterday. Our neighborhood was evacuated on Monday, but the mandatory order has now been lifted. And the streets that were closed are opened enough to let us get home. Our river was 2 or 3 feet higher than the previous record, set in 1941. We had a bitter 5 year fight to keep a Super WalMart from filling in flood plain just below Decorah. We lost and I'm thinking CIVIL SUIT for our friends right on the river. I'm quite certain that 4 friends of ours had overflow into their houses.

We have a lot of furniture and storage items in our basement. This is not going to be fun. The weather forecast is very bad - I hope it is wrong.

By popular demand, I'm going to keep this blog going a bit longer to report to our out-of-town friends on the situation.

Another Family Picture

This is most of the family of Alan's brother, Barry.

Family Pictures for Lauren and Rachel

The little one on the right here is Anna, our great-niece. I got to attend the end-of-the-school- year program at her nursery school. Anna sang with gusto!

Alan, the Big Sports Fan

Alan is loyal to only one team, the Detroit Red Wings. We hadn't had a chance to watch, or even listen to, any of the Stanley Cup games. But for game 6, we found a sports bar in Kingston and got to see the Red Wings win the big cup. Here Alan does a high five with a sweet young college student from Detroit who wore her jersey to the bar. We had a great evening, even though we were twice as old as the next oldest person in this bar. AND even though they had music blasting on top of all the TVs.

We "Hit a Wall"

After our big day in Quebec City, we sat down to plan the next day on the town. I don't remember which of us said, "or we could just head for Detroit?" Then the phrase "hit a wall" was uttered. Suddenly it all caught up with us and we were exhausted. We had had a fabulous trip. But we were tired of studying every night as though we were facing an exam the next day. Barb told us that we had twelve hours of driving to get to Detroit, so the next day we waited until she said we had six left and stopped for the night in Kingston, Ontario.

Big Year for Quebec!

On July 3, Quebec (all of Canada?) will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of this city. I believe it was Cartier who landed here. This anniversary is big and the city is shiny bright with reminders of the big date everywhere.