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I've taken this picture before... |
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First day of a whole week (plus two weekends!) of vacation. |
Packed up the car and the dogs and headed down to Tivoli, NY where i met up with Don at his mother's house. We packed up some of his mother's stuff (she died about a year before) and made a run to Goodwill, stopping at an old ruined factory building to take pictures, then at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, where we were fortunate enough to run into one of the volunteers who gave us a little behind-the-ropes tour of an exact replica of The Spirit Of St. Louis. Had dinner at a local diner and spent the night at Don's mom's house. |
Don and i tandem-drove over to Shunk. |
Don and i replaced bridge #7. Went fishing off the dock that evening. Lots of strikes but didn't land anything. |
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Built a replacement set of steps for Poppop's duck blind. Went fishing again that night. I caught a too-small pickerel and tossed it back. Don caught a good-sized pickerel and two bass. After Don cleaned the fish, we went out with a flashlight to dump the guts at the garbage pit. I noticed that one of the fence posts was falling over, so i took a rock and started pounding it back into the ground. At the first whack there was a great flurry of noise about 15 feet away as what we determined later to be a bear took off into the woods. Scared the pee out of Don although for some reason it didn't phase me at all.
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Fried fish for breakfast. Yum. Don and i went out and picked blackberries. Don hit the road back to Virginia, dropping me off to pick up my Trooper with freshly a welded frame, and i mashed the berries into jelly. |
Walked the dogs for a bit, then hit the road back to VT in front of Hurricane Irene, which was winding its way into New England. Started raining just past Albany and rained pretty hard for a while, then i drove out of it on Route 7 near Manchester. Hard rain to dry road in about 100 yards. |
Tropical Storm Irene arrives in Vermont. Steady rain all day, but i wasn't thinking that it was anything bad. First sign that it might actually be significant was that my basement was flooding. Second sign was when i looked out my living room window and could see the Mill River. Usually the Mill River is 100 yards away, down past my neighbor's lawn, 5 or 6 feet below sight line. When i saw it, i went out and took a few pictures of it running just unser the two bridges on 140. Late in the afternoon, i decided to take a hot shower before my hot water heater went under. Both sump pumps were running constantly, and the water was still rising.
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Drove to work. The river had topped one of the bridges in East Wallingford, but all of them were still standing. There was one spot near Healdsville on the way to work where the shoulders of the road had been washed away, but otherwise no problems. People arrived at work late, finding alternate ways in as so many roads were out. This was the beginning of a week of work with my boss Tim away on vacation.
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Drove around Okemo Ridge Road and took some pictures.
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Walked out to the railroad trestle over Route 155. The stream underneath was significantly wider. |