What’s Next?

Posted under Writing by Rob

Well, recent events have me wondering if I need to worry about hot hail or locusts coming next.

First came the winter storms full of large amounts of snow, ice, snow, rain and more snow. We had a grand total of about 20 inches of snow here in the South Puget Sound area of Washington state. This was highly unusual and broke all records. And it was very cold on top of that, which made for some miserable snow shoveling episodes.

To add to the fun, since this was so unusual for the area, there was virtually nothing effective done to clear to the roads. For several days, the roads were solid ice, except for the areas where the ice had broken forming pot holes. Driving on this excuse for a road surface was an exercise in skill, luck, and probably stupidity. Better to stay home and wait it out. But taking pictures of the beautiful scenes was a must.

After a few weeks of this winter wonderland, the temperature rose and the snow began to melt. All seemed well. Until too much melting started to happen in the mountains. Several feet of snow had fallen, and now it was melting and pouring into many of the rivers in the area, which began to rise at an alarming rate. This coincided with the jetstream pointing a firehose of rain in our direction. So, for the second time in a little over a year, we had another 500 year flood.

Most of the interstates, and small roads were closed in this part of the state. Getting to work was again an exciting adventure, best avoided for those with brains and a cable modem. However, even the damaging floods had their own particular beauty.

Eventually, the rains abated, the waters receded, and life is again returning to normal. But someone said that things like this come in threes. So I watch the skies, and listen to the trees, wondering what fun nature has in store for our little part of the world. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be filled with beauty, wonder, and maybe some more excitement.