A Day of Wild Weather

Winter is not giving up easily in our hills.

Yesterday we took a little drive to see how high the Ohio River had gotten. I also wanted to go down a road I haven't traveled in years, one that borders the river on the Ohio side.

It was pretty obvious before we even got to the river that there was a LOT of water coming downstream. All the creeks feeding into the river were backed up and overflowing their banks--and we could see that rather than the water flowing out of them, it was backing up into them from the river. Many lower lying fields were inundated, but fortunately we saw no flooded houses.

As we turned down the road I wanted to travel, we saw a sign. "High Water. Road Closed."

"Better turn around," Larry said.

"Let's just go look. Sometimes they don't take those signs down after the water's gone down." Just call me optimistic.

It was pretty clear as we drove along that the water was, if anything, getting higher.

And sure enough:

So we had to turn around and I had to listen to "I told you so." Ha! I didn't mind; I knew the odds were that the road would be blocked, but I wanted to see anyway. This camp along the road had water in a lot of its buildings.

I had to laugh at this sign. I guess it could have been put in a lot of places yesterday!

This is a pretty road, and I still want to drive it to see more of the pretty farmland that borders it. Some other day.

At Ravenswood, we tried to see how deep the river was, but could not quite make out the markings on the bridge.

I took a photo and came home to enlarge it. But silly me, those markings are for the river barges and other river traffic, and show the clearance from bridge to water, not water depth. Duh.

We came on home and unloaded the few things we'd bought while we were out (you know I had to stop at a thrift or two). It was raining again by then, and that was worrying with the water already over roads in many places.

And then this started.

Huge, fat flakes that began sticking almost immediately, and coming down so fast that visibility was minimal.

The hill in the distance was completely invisible in this snowstorm.

It kept up hard and fast for a couple hours, leaving about two inches covering everything. Talk about slush. With the ground so wet, then the snow and a drop in the temperature the sidewalk looked like it had been covered with gray Slurpee. Friends who were caught driving in it reported some very slick conditions. I bet it was. I was thankful to be home.

We built a fire, got out our books, and were cozy as could be the rest of the evening. It began raining again sometime in the evening, and by this morning most of the snow was gone.

I think Spring is trying to make her entrance, but Old Man Winter isn't ready to hibernate yet. Reports are for very warm temperatures this week, and to tell the truth I'd rather it stayed cold to keep the trees and flowers from budding out too soon. But Nature will do what she will do; we're just along for the ride.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.