Tuesday during early afternoon the Platte River was supposed to crest near Louisville, so I went and got pictures.
This is about 9.67 feet, the record is less than three feet higher. It's a top ten flood, well, top ten since the oppressive western-centric caucasian capitalist chauvinist males started keeping records ... that hurt to say, do people listen to themselves when they say stuff like that? (it's a rhetorical question)
Tuesday evening we had the usual dance practice, but with a twist ... instead of Dan and Giselle on the screen, we had Dan and Gabby in person. We got about a ninety minute semi-private lesson. If I were a good dancer instead of a guy who dances, I might have learned more, but I got one good move out of it and hopefully a couple principles.
Wednesday evening I finished up processing pictures from the wedding and getting them on line. Thursday was kind of sad, I had errands to run near Old Towne Bellevue, so I included Dairy Queen and then a trip to Haworth Park to see what I thought would be a little high water, nope.
Pretty much underwater :-( This is a preview, more to follow.
Later in the evening I hung out on the front porch and watched the storms. I tried to get some lightening pictures, like 70 plus attempts, but it's tough. I love rain, storms, and watching from a porch.
I have a new exercise plan which is meeting with mixed results. I am getting up in the morning and working out and walking. I actually love it, and it's not really an issue, except that I've given priority to getting enough sleep. So the getting up early isn't it, getting to sleep on time is. I'm working on it. I got up early Friday and was working, when a front rolled in. It's was pretty intimidating, but no rain and not much wind.
Full of sound and fury, well not so much sound, and not that furious either. Pretty much signifying nothing.
Friday evening I went to the dance. I'm really excited about dancing lately, not so much about JNO. Still I thought I had a nice night dancing. Saturday I was sick most of the day, and spent it curled up on the couch, so I missed dancing in the Papillion days parade. About 1800, I had napped enough that the medicine had caught up, so I started moving around, and by 2000 I felt well enough to go out. I went to Harrah's and saw Satchel Grande. It was my first time seeing them, but it won't be my last, funkadelic baby. I guess it was when I was leaving that the flooding finally hit home. I was parked in the Harrah's garage and as I was leaving, I looked over the side of the garage into the lower level and saw the Missouri River covering it, I must have stared for a while, Merinda finally said "what's wrong?", I finally got in the car and left.
Sunday I woke up completely recovered from Saturday's headache, and I was ready to go. First up was church and Mass Chaos. We went to Saint Robert Bellarmine, you can read about it here. There was thunder and lightening all around. We ate at Gandalfo's after church, the food is much better than their dumb radio ads.
It was 1430, I knew I had to be at Maeg's by 1730, and so I had some time to mess around, so I decided on an adventure. I drove from church down to Gifford Farm in Bellevue. I parked at the Hitchcock Wetlands Learning Center and walked down the Gifford Boardwalk to the observation tower to the 'Great Marsh'. Okay, let's be clear, the term wetlands completely applied here.
The boardwalk was actually floating, not anchored down. It was like a half mile long walk on a raft.
No rain when I got to the end of the boardwalk, but then...
...it starts raining, and then I spot, um, well, I have no training in tornado spotting, but you know, it looks like something. My situation is I'm standing at the edge of a forest that is under a foot and a half of water, I can run back to my car, a half a mile away on a very slippery path, but then where am I going? I decided to just stay where I was and if I had to take a dive, I'd take a dive. Instead I decided to take some more pictures. Yeah, that worked out pretty well.
IMHO, the best photo I've ever taken.
Looks like me with the famous umbrella.
This is a lake, not a marsh ... well, really it's just an extension of the Missouri River.
I walked back down the boardwalk and over to Gifford Farm, the nearer field is where I usually see the horses in the farther field.
Yes, this picture was taken in the Omaha metro.
I then drove downtown Bellevue, back to Haworth Park to take a few more pictures there. Red, White, and Que, the BBQ contest, concert, and fireworks has been canceled for this year, as if the flooded park wasn't depressing enough, Bellevue's annual festival is now gone too.
These are some sad picnic tables.
I could not believe how still the water was.
I thought this picture was pretty cool too. None of these pictures looked so impressive until I saw them on the computer.
From there I drove south on Hancock Street to the trail access point near the Papio's mouth. It was a little marshy and very full.
This guy was hanging out on the NRD Papio trail.
What more rain? Good thing that's to the east.
I don't think Jenny or Keith are riding down this trail on their bikes any time soon.
And that was the end of the afternoon of being half a fish. You can see all the pictures I took here.
I went from there home, changed into some dry clothes and headed over to Maeg's to play Arkham Horror with the Innsmouth Horror Expansion with her and Ben Cass. Yeah, things didn't go so well, and I'm not really sure how it got all so out of control, but for the first time in a while, we lost. At least I wasn't devoured in real life, instead I had an awesome week.
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