I’m not, but I probably should be….

Today I did something that when I stopped to think about it, well… it didn’t seem all that bright.  You’ve heard on your national news, etc how the western portion of Washington has drifted off to sea.  The flooding is bad.  We are not too affected in our neighborhood but some roads are blocked etc.  This afternoon AG and I went exploring. Where’d we go?  To stand by one of those raging rivers.

AG woke up from her nap early and instead of trying to become an instant entertainment committee I decided we’d go exploring.  I didn’t really know where’d we’d go. Afterall, it was cold and raining off and on. Earlier we had a smidge of sun, but by afternoon it was all gone.

I remembered that there was a sign at the other end of town that pointed to 2 state parks up along the Green River Gorge.   Off we went,  driving past flooded farms and heading toward the river. 

First we stopped at Kanaskat-Palmer State Park.  The Green River does have some rapids at the point that it enters the state park but the rapids today were above and beyond the picture on that link.  The water sounded like a freight train and the riverside trail was flooded out. 

The water in this river (and currently in all our local rivers) has turned a muddy brown.  It’s from all the mud and debris that it has picked up.  Debris floated by us and the water is moving so quickly that the stuff was just a blur. 

This week as I have driven around I’ve seen farms that are currently "lakeside" property and I’ve driven over creeks that I never noticed before.  They are now impossible to miss because they are 5 feet wide, about to come onto the road and have a wicked fast current.  Prior to this little flooding thing, those creeks were nothing more than a trickle.

Here’s the really strange thing about all of this.  It really didn’t rain all that much (by Florida standards).  I mean, yeah it rained for a few days but it really was what I used to think of as sprinkling or a light rain.  It did rain all day, every day for a few days but still, it didn’t rain all that hard.    Even though I think it didn’t rain all that hard, the weather guys are saying that we’re already close to breaking the all time record for the most rainfall in the month of November.

And it started raining again today.

And supposedly there’s a storm heading our way. 

I’m used to seeing hurricane stuff on the news, not flooding stuff.  I don’t understand it and I’m a bit stunned.  I guess it’s just new to me.

While I stood by the river I had two thoughts.  First, this is really dumb standing by this river.  But I was out-done in my darwin-ness.  A guy walked up with a kayak in his hand. I asked him if he was going in and he said he was going to try.  That is what I’d call Certifiable Buckwild Crazy.  I guess that is the same  amount of stupidity enthusiasm that all those folks have when they try to go surfing as the hurricanes are coming ashore. 

My second thought was that this river looks a lot different than it did on this  day.  These photos were taken on the same body of water just a bit down river. 

AG and I headed back and on the way we stopped at Nolte State Park.  This park is built along Deep Lake that is also part of the gorge.  These photos are pretty dark but it was only 4 in the afternoon.

AG loved tossing rocks in the water.  I drew the line when it started raining.  She wanted to stay but it was biting cold and I bailed.  She, in turn, expressed her great displeasure over my decision.

Tonight Dana and I finished up a project we started last night: watching all the tivo’d episodes of Lost.  We went through about 5 episodes in 2 nights.  Just a tip: watching so many back to back episodes of Lost does nothing to lower your blood pressure or combat insomnia.  I’m just a bit high strung after all of that.

To make matters worse when we finished watching the episode that aired last night  they announce this is their Fall Finale.  What dat??????   They are actually breaking in the middle of the season and not going to come back until February???!!!!??

That’s.  Just. Wrong!!!!!!!

I have worked on Telemark these past few days but not while watching Lost.  I thought that might be a recipe for disaster.  Instead I’ve been going round and round on the socks.  I only knit them together once and I caught it pretty early.  Here’s a progess shot.

Regarding Telemark I have to say thank you to Jill.   All the while that I was fussing about that pattern being called the lice stitch it kept bugging me.  To me, they look like little Fleur de Lis.  I actually about had myself convinced that I was crazy because if they really looked like Fleur de Lis then why in the world wouldn’t they be called Fleur de Lis instead of Lice Stitch.  ‘Cause ya know…. that’s about the ugliest thing you could name a pattern.  And the itchiest.  Anyway, Jill sent me a comment stating that the pattern is also called the Fleur de Lis.  So, I’m not crazy.  The person who chose the words Lice Stitch over Fleur de Lis?  Well they obviously have some issues.

Well, I’m heading off to bed.  AG and I are going to go exploring some more tomorrow.  Not sure what we’ll do but we’ll see.  Friday is usually a therapy day but the center is closed for Veteran’s Day. So we’re foot loose and fancy free.

Toodles!