Another Rainy Night in Indiana

April 27-28 - Indiana is not putting on its best face for our visit this year.  It continues to rain and storm, pretty much every day and night.  Enough already!

 On Tuesday, we drove to Princeton to the cemetery where most of my family is buried, and put some flowers on the graves.  We stopped at a KFC for lunch, and a ceiling tile fell onto a customer at the counter.  Obviously, the flat roofs are not handling all this rain either.  We quickly finished eating and got out of there, just in case the whole ceiling collapsed.

 
The tornado warning radio continues to go off every day, but now it includes flood warnings for the surrounding counties.  Fortunately, Lucille does not live in any flood zone, so we don't have to worry about that.  But they have put the flood gates up in Vincennes (which sits right on the Wabash River, for those non-Indiana readers).  We drove in to Kimmel Park, which is right in town, and saw the flood gates, put in place where there is a break in the levee for a driveway or entrance to the river.   They have more to put up, and the newspaper every day has something about the flooding and rain. 

In this last picture, you can see where the levee comes right up to the concrete wall.    The situation is really serious back here, and it's hard to imagine when the farmers will ever be able to get out in their fields.  We are supposed to have some sunshine tomorrow, but there is more rain in the forecast.  But we have much to be thankful for, since we didn't get hit like Georgia and Alabama.  Yet.  My niece Dana called me from Chattanooga and told me they are under tornado warnings there.  I talked to her later and they were without power, but they were safe.

We used to use the boat ramp here to ski on this river, back in the day.  The river at Mt. Carmel, where we crossed into Indiana, is at 31 foot, and flood stage is 19 feet, so obviously there is water, water everywhere.  We have not driven back down to where the rivers meet because we assume some of those roads are under water now.   This is the other side of the flood gates, at Kimmel Park.  I think they have camping here, so I'm glad we didn't plan on using this as our campground. 

Yesterday we drove to Terre Haute to visit two of our friends there.  Audrey, who helped me raise my kids (she was my babysitter for both kids for those early years) has recently moved from her big old two-story plus basement house into an apartment, so we got to see her new digs.  She is very comfortable in her new place, and seems to be adjusting well.  Then we drove to Brazil to visit my ex co-worker Diane, and had a good visit with her.  She actually had lilacs blooming in her yard, but it was pouring down rain when we left so I did not pick any -- much to my regret.  We met one of Audrey's grandsons, and got to see Diane's daughter, Amy, and Amy's her sons, so that was fun.  We drove back in the rain, and then the wind hammered us all night long.  I never imagined myself back here living in a trailer, and that is basically what we are doing now, since we are sleeping out in the RV.  Every night I think maybe we should move inside, but we would have to brave the storm in order to do that (and I'm not sure I could talk Joe into running out in the rain in his jammies, and I won't go without him), and so I just don't have any good choices.  I would be pushing Joe to leave here if I could figure out where to go, safely. Cathy told me today that Branson, Missouri, is flooded.   Alaska is sounding like better every day.

While we were in Terre Haute, we drove past the junior high that Tiffany attended (Woodrow Wilson Junior High School).  It is really a beautiful building and they have maintained it well.

We also drove past the house we had built back there, in 1976.  It too has been well-maintained, which was nice to see.  Some of the trees we planted there are huge now, but the old oak tree is the front yard is still standing proud.

Joe got his white castle hamburgers while we were in Terre Haute.  If they would have had this in Terre Haute when we lived here, Joe might not have ever moved.  Just kidding.  After two weeks of this weather, there is no way I would ever consider moving back here.  Just in case anyone is wondering.

Joe continues to have a "to-do" list from his mother, and he got a few more things taken care of today.  But the list never seems to get shorter.  She's getting a lot of sand in her water system, so that has been a big concern here.  Joe has changed the filter a couple of times, and until the well driller comes up with a solution, it appears that they will have to be changed about every week or so.