Wading in flood waters in work clothes

Laurie stopped by her cottage on the way home from work to check up on it.  She waded down the normally dry road to get in, but abandoned all boots on the way back out since to get into her back door, it was going over the top of her boots.  We got this one on crest day.

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit2?ns=1&video_id=3rz38SfjMzc&next=%2Fmy_videos2%3Fpi%3D0%26ps%3D20%26sf%3Dadded%26sa%3D0%26sq%3D%26dm%3D1

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit2?ns=1&video_id=pmVk3j9J4qs&next=%2Fmy_videos2%3Fpi%3D0%26ps%3D20%26sf%3Dadded%26sa%3D0%26sq%3D%26dm%3D1

Good thing we can keep our sense of humor.  She and her husband have since repainted, replanted and decorated.  Looks good.

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Wisconsin River is coming this way

The Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien WI.  Therefore high water there is of great interest to us folks downstream.  I took these pictures going over the Wisconsin River at US Highway 61 last week.

It is still up very high.

And flooded in the backwaters:

Storm clouds at sunset over the Mississippi River

On the same day as the rainbow, I got some beautiful cloud pictures at sunset:

You can tell it was a flood day, although not at crest.  The river is over the bank and the gangway is pointed upwards.

White pelicans on the Mississippi River

The white pelicans migrate through here, but sometimes it seesm they get quite comfortable and do not leave.  (This happens to many folks in the Quad Cities, who thought they were just passing thru, just ask Kim).  I did not take these pictures since I was at work and it was the middle of the day, but Kim caught them using my camera.  I really enjoy the one with them all diving down at once.  As you can see, it was right off of our dock.  And between flood crests.

Must have been some good fish under there…..

Up river in Dubuque again

I got this picture going over the highway 61 bridge in Dubuque last week.  The crest was well past, but if you look very carefully in the distance, you will see a barge that has run up against the highway 20 bridge downriver.  There is a railroad bridge first, and then the silver spans of the highway 20 bridge.  Look about 2/3 of the way up the picture, 1/4 of the way in from the right.  Sorry, taking pictures from a moving RV can be a challenge.

 

Bubba the great blue heron

Right after the rainbow, I finally spotted a great blue heron fishing off of Spike’s flooded dock.  I carefully crept up, but it did not move.  Then cars drove by, but it did not move.  It also did not catch any fish, in flood waters….we decided this was not the fastest or brightest heron.

Rainbow over the river

Before the crest, but right after one of those ever present rainfalls, I caught some rainbows, even hints of a double rainbow, to the south towards the Illinois side.

Do you think this was Mother Nature laughing at us?

Flooded Iowa fields

We headed to Cedar Rapids to check out some new puppies.  Not too smart, almost at flood crest.  They were closing major highways behind us as the Cedar River came up over them.  You saw the pictures I took earlier of Cedar Rapids.  But what really stuck us were the flooded Iowa farm fields, and the skies full of yet more rain.  So here are some pictures from the journey.  We had to take some non major roads, since the major ones were flooded.

So here is a toast to a little sunshine….

Mississippi flood, Leclaire Iowa, June 20, 2008

The front yard is a bit of a mess.  I guess it is our fault for not moving the lawn furniture, but we were so tired.   Should clean up fairly easily.   Notice the dock gangway is now pointing down again.

River yuck…fertile soil…..

Cresting at 14.84 feet in Leclaire

Yesterday, Monday, June 16th, the Mississippi River crested at 14.84 feet in Leclaire, making it the 4th worst flood in recorded history.  But we survived, even had a lot of fun.  But we have not yet starting cleaning up.

Here are some pictures.

No fire by the river last night.

As you can see, we could still get in and out of the house.  There was water under the crawl space at the front of the house, but it did make it up to the floor.

The side yard to the east stayed dry.  Here in the Quad Cities, the Mississippi River runs east and west so Iowa is to the north and Illinois to the south.