We're fine as frog hair - and that split 3 ways, which is mighty fine as hair goes.
Some of the water is up around here, but I've seen it worse. Nothing up in the house or anything - the basement isn't even flooded.... I suppose. I don't go down there, on account of there's things down there. Monsters always live in the basement if they can't find a convenient closet, and I've got no doubt the giant spiders keep them run out from under the bed.
I went out to town yesterday, and there IS a big chunk of road missing on the other side of the mountain. The roads here wrap around the sides of mountains so that it's either straight up or straight down from the road bed. On the other side of the mountain, it looked like the creek had washed out the mountainside from underneath the road bed in a place where the edge of the road IS the mountainside, with no shoulder at all and hard top right to the drop, and consequently a large chunk of road collapsed into the creek 20 0r 30 feet below and washed away. Looked like a big dragon took a bite out of the road clear to the yellow lines and erased about 20 feet or so of one lane so that two way traffic has to squeeze into one lane at that point until they get it fixed.
There's another spot near the top of the mountain, on my way to work, that's going to collapse the same way If they don't patch it up pretty soon. About a foot of the edge of the hard top is already gone, and there's a big crack in the center of the road where the ground beneath is being undermined. That's not so far to fall, though - only about 4 or 5 feet. the creek bed is shallower up there because there isn't as much runoff on the top near the ridges to cut it any deeper. All that mountain side to gather the rain and funnel it into the streams is lower.
I'm in the southwestern part of Virginia. If I went 16 miles or so west I'd be in Kentucky, and if I went about that far to the northeast, I'd be in West Virginia. The elevation here at the house is about 1450 feet above sea level, and the top of the mountain where I work is about 2200 feet above sea level. It's not quite like where I was raised, which started at 2200 feet ASL and went up to about 4600 feet.
In the late 70's, there was a flood here that washed the town away. Just POOF! and it wasn't here any more. Some folks said that it did about 4 million dollars worth of improvements to the area. They've since rebuilt, but there aren't any houses down in town any more - just a court house, a Wal-mart, and a couple of other businesses. Big Sandy and her forks ain't got much pity when the rains come, and we've had a lot of them so far this year.
Between the rains and AlGore's Global Warming, this place is starting to look a whole lot like the Amazon, so I feel right at home here now. I dunno what AlGore is skeert of - this is getting to look more like paradise every day, thick dark green everywhere, not a desert in sight. Maybe the giant spiders are a little offputting to him - we got some GIANT Huntsman spiders here that my baby sister calls "tarantulas". Surely it ain't the bears - they mostly mind their own business, unless you've got trash set out or leave the dog's bowl on the porch.
All in all, life just don't get no better than this, the occasional sinking road aside.
Some of the water is up around here, but I've seen it worse. Nothing up in the house or anything - the basement isn't even flooded.... I suppose. I don't go down there, on account of there's things down there. Monsters always live in the basement if they can't find a convenient closet, and I've got no doubt the giant spiders keep them run out from under the bed.
I went out to town yesterday, and there IS a big chunk of road missing on the other side of the mountain. The roads here wrap around the sides of mountains so that it's either straight up or straight down from the road bed. On the other side of the mountain, it looked like the creek had washed out the mountainside from underneath the road bed in a place where the edge of the road IS the mountainside, with no shoulder at all and hard top right to the drop, and consequently a large chunk of road collapsed into the creek 20 0r 30 feet below and washed away. Looked like a big dragon took a bite out of the road clear to the yellow lines and erased about 20 feet or so of one lane so that two way traffic has to squeeze into one lane at that point until they get it fixed.
There's another spot near the top of the mountain, on my way to work, that's going to collapse the same way If they don't patch it up pretty soon. About a foot of the edge of the hard top is already gone, and there's a big crack in the center of the road where the ground beneath is being undermined. That's not so far to fall, though - only about 4 or 5 feet. the creek bed is shallower up there because there isn't as much runoff on the top near the ridges to cut it any deeper. All that mountain side to gather the rain and funnel it into the streams is lower.
I'm in the southwestern part of Virginia. If I went 16 miles or so west I'd be in Kentucky, and if I went about that far to the northeast, I'd be in West Virginia. The elevation here at the house is about 1450 feet above sea level, and the top of the mountain where I work is about 2200 feet above sea level. It's not quite like where I was raised, which started at 2200 feet ASL and went up to about 4600 feet.
In the late 70's, there was a flood here that washed the town away. Just POOF! and it wasn't here any more. Some folks said that it did about 4 million dollars worth of improvements to the area. They've since rebuilt, but there aren't any houses down in town any more - just a court house, a Wal-mart, and a couple of other businesses. Big Sandy and her forks ain't got much pity when the rains come, and we've had a lot of them so far this year.
Between the rains and AlGore's Global Warming, this place is starting to look a whole lot like the Amazon, so I feel right at home here now. I dunno what AlGore is skeert of - this is getting to look more like paradise every day, thick dark green everywhere, not a desert in sight. Maybe the giant spiders are a little offputting to him - we got some GIANT Huntsman spiders here that my baby sister calls "tarantulas". Surely it ain't the bears - they mostly mind their own business, unless you've got trash set out or leave the dog's bowl on the porch.
All in all, life just don't get no better than this, the occasional sinking road aside.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’