We had been hearing about the Mississippi River and the Missouri River's over flowing due to lots of snow this past winter and too much rain to start the spring with so we were watching for the signs. Needless to say we didn't have to wait too long.
It really is a shock to see the this amount of water, very hard to share just how close it is to the freeway as the camera only shows so much and as there was no place to pull off this is the best I can do.
So as we take I-680 around Council Bluffs we never saw how close the water was through this area. We continued on our trip across the country to Columbus, OH.
Monitoring the weather as now we are in severe thunderstorm months. This means there is always the possibility of large hail stone, this worries us more than the tornado's do. Don't get me wrong both can do severe damage to the truck but it is what it is.
As the storms are really hit and miss we head over to Columbus and get unloaded on the Friday and finally get a load lined up but it doesn't load till Monday so we are spending the weekend.
It's HOT and MUGGY and there is nothing we can do so we try and find the coolest area to spend the weekend, still worried about the storms. Can't win for trying some days.
We are picking up in Cincinnati on Monday morning so we find a truck stop about an hour north, has plenty of parking and food selections; sounds like a good place to stay. Yeah... not in our favor.
We get parked, nice area for Dozer to run around behind the trailer as we parked in the back along a wooded area. Fairly quiet; should be nice, right?
As we are headed across the lot to get some dinner we are watching the clouds move in from the South West with an easterly wind?? We didn't get it either but this is what it was.
They are DARK clouds and moving fairly fast but appeared far enough away that we should be able to get back before it hits.
We get in to the eatery and Chris is watching the clouds closing in on us. We didn't doddle over dinner as we wanted to get back to the truck. So we finish up and head out the door.
Yeah, the wind gusted around 40-50 mph and just as we got across the 5 lanes and in to the gas pump area the rain started.
Now for those of you who have never been in a rain storm in Ohio, it's not like the rain we get on the West coast. The rain over there is like turning your faucet on, FULL and imagine that from the sky. hard to picture I know and IF I wasn't running to save everything in my purse I might have thought to get a picture, though I wasn't able to even see through the water flowing down my face.
We got in the truck and we were as wet as if we had jumped in a pool of water fully clothed. Head to toe soaked to the skin with puddles in our shoes.
Truly an amazing experience, but it doesn't end here, nooooo. As we sitting absolutely shocked at what we just came through and our condition we heard it! And I am not referring to the thunder outside. I am referring to the faucet fast flow of water pouring in the cab of the truck. Yes, it is a repeat of Kentucky last month, but WAY more this time. We had a wash bin in the truck that we use for storage and we quickly put it under the flow. As it filled I asked Chris if he wanted me to free up the other bin so we could swap them out and empty them as the filled. He said he would wait till it filled more. Yeah, not 5 minutes later he is sitting in the passenger seat (the wind was blowing from the driver side), bailing the pan out with a cup we had handy. There was so much rain for a good 20 minutes and he just sat there scooping it out. Finally the rain subsided and eventually slowed to where the outside trough was able to keep up with it.
So now the inside of the truck front to back is soaked. All the mats we use to protect the floors, heavily soaked as were all our clothes. So into a bag all this went as we weren't going outside till this mess stopped.
Saturday morning we are outside, in the sunshine, hanging everything on a near by fence letting them drip dry with a nice breeze and the sunshine. Chris borrowed a drill (his charger had decided it didn't want to work either), and added a couple of drain holes in the trough, we are hoping this stops the flooding of the truck.
Sunday night we headed down to Cincinnati to get loaded the next morning. Didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped but we got that pick on and headed to Frankfort, KY to get the second pick on.
We hauled for Jim Bean Plants and I took a few pictures of their Frankfort plant it was pretty neat over all. The link includes a lot more photos of the trip with captions, this is just a few pictures that I am including in the blurb.
So now we are headed home. Coming through Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri it was same as always. Watching fuel prices and weather systems. Trying to avoid the worst of the storms as possible but not always missing them all.
We spent the night in Oak Grove, MO then headed up I-29 and this is where we got caught unprepared.
You see, we had been fighting a charging problem that ended up being a ground wire that had been broken off. This caused our Frig to stop working all together and the computers not to charge so they were off for most of the trip. Well as we came into Council Bluffs, we see a sign telling us I-29 North is closed and to take I-80 E. We figured we were being routed around on I-680. Not a problem we know this way.
Yeah... Not so. A mile from the exit we see another sign I-680 is closed now we are being detoured to I-35.
So we get off on the next exit, call 511 to see how bad the flooding is. Pull out the map as the computers are off and the GPS system we use had managed to get a virus during one of its updates from the manufacturer. So old school we go. I find a route that gets us back to I-29 but on smaller highways but still red lines on the map. So off we go.
The route was pretty nice, we saw some back country that other wise you would never see and as we approached I-29 we went through Missouri Valley and the whole town has been sand bagged.
Again there are more pictures in the link.
We saw them preparing the interstate for massive flooding as this is north of the dam that broke earlier in the week in Hamburg, IA. Fields were just water all along the interstate.
As we came through Montana we saw more flooding from the Yellowstone River.
It really is a shocking thing to see all over the country the ground is so saturated there is no place for the water to go.
The link to Picasa has more pictures and I only picked the ones that I liked. This one is the one that has the most impact though:
Radar Man
This has the best impact on work zones and makes you smile.
Till next time this is what is I have.
