Ah, spring in the Red River Valley of the North....

Icy, slushy spring,.....

When a young person's fancy turns to.....sandbags and river levels. 

Spring in the Red River Valley can be a wonderful time to while away the hours...which I what I did last week on the way home from work.  I took my usual route east on 12th Ave North, south on 25th Street and east on Main Ave.

Big mistake. Big, honkin' humungous mistake.

Especially since I ended up on the inside lane, with no way to turn off and escape. A trip that usually takes about 20 minutes or so turned into a five-hour crawl. That was not a misprint. Five hours. During that time I learned from listening to the radio that the crest level had just been revised to 41 to 42 feet. I have an alternate route mapped out for next time. Pray this never happens to you.

On a much happier note, my dad, who suffered a stroke early last week, is doing better. He was transferred from Innovis in Fargo to the rehabilitation ward at Lake Region in Fergus Falls. He's responding well to physical therapy; I noticed improvement in his speech when talking to him on the phone. It's still one day at a time, but there's hope.

With all the ups and downs of this flood and the accompanying wild weather, one can ask, why live in a place like this, anyway?

Because, ultimately, there's no such thing as perfect security.

Sure, it doesn't seem to make much sense to live right next to a river, or build your house on top of an earthquake fault, etc., etc.  But is there anyplace on the planet which is perfectly safe? If you read "news of the bizarre" columns from time to time, you learn of all manner of nasty dangers to personal safety, from a chunk of ice falling off a passing airliner to a piece of sharp metal turned into a flying projectile by a lawnmower. Truth is truly stranger than fiction, and a lot more interesting.

This, too, will pass, however slowly. In the meantime, do what you can to stay safe. 

Peace.

Tags: natural disasters
Current Mood: good