We went to Utah Valley on Saturday for Taylor's mission farewell. We weren't able to leave til Sat morning because of XC and football and cheer/drill on Friday. We had plans to leave early on Saturday. Haha! We all overslept and still had to pack once we woke up. So we left a couple of hours later than we had wanted to. Then we got just past the airport and Cambria realized she had forgotten the guitar and banjo. She wanted to try to trade them for a better guitar. So we turned around and went back for them, also changing drivers. This time we got almost to the Rodeway Inn before I realized that the contact in my left eye was really irritating my eyelid. I noticed a small tear in it that morning and thought it would be okay, after all it was only a week old. But the thought of driving 4+ hours with it hurting didn't make me happy, so we turned around yet again so I could go exchange it for a new one. (when I pulled it out I could see that the tear was nearly to the center of the contact. No wonder it hurt.)
So third time was the charm and we were actually able to get past Peter's Hill this time. We noticed in Spanish Fork Canyon that there had been some flooding, with dried mud on the road. All the hillsides between Skyview and Billy's Mt. had deep crevices on them where the water had run off them, with piles of sand, rock and debris at the base of the hills. We could also see that we were driving into a storm. We even saw a bolt of lightening hit. When we were going up the east side of Billy's Mt. I was looking up at the switchbacks from when they had made the cut there in 83-84 to reopen the road through the canyon, and I saw smoke and a tree on fire. Yup, found where the lightening had struck!
When we got into the valley, we had a few stops to make: Costco, Sam's Club, IFA, and Bill Harris Music. We had done the food shopping and Cambria and Curtis had gone in to the music store to trade guitars. Those of us sitting in the car were looking to the south and watching the clouds roiling above us. I got out to get a better look at them. Hannah said, 'Hey, that one looks like a tsunami!" I took some pictures as the clouds continued to move and change. They had very interesting shapes and colors. Almost looked like tornado weather, that lovely greenish cast to the sky.
Then we went to IFA for chicken feed and while Curtis was in there, the storm hit with full fury. No working up to it, it was gangbusters from the get go. He got a bit wet walking from the door to the car. We tried to make our way to the Lefebvre's but with the storm and the traffic for the BYU football game, it took us about 30 minutes, with a few detours. We saw trees down, signs blown over, rivers running down streets, cars trying to be boats......It was crazy and it was as close as I ever want to come to experiencing a hurricane.
Good Things:
The farewell was great, it was nice to see all the family and friends...
watching people turn out to help each other (many in the Lefebvre's neighborhood had their basements flooded.)
Nice to see Ford again and meet his girlfriend.
Great weekend!
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| I liked the greenish tint between the banks of clouds in this one. |
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| Interesting formations-moving fast |
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| The really dark bottomed cloud is the one Hannah thought looked like a tsunami wave... |
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| Here it is moving closer to us.... |
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| It really does look like it's just going to roll over us... |
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| Heading east on 3rd S. Wipers could hardly keep up. |
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| 3rd S and University. Looks like fog, but it's just heavy rain. |
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| Turning up the road to the Lefebvre's. The water pouring down the street was muddy and had rocks in it and was flowing out and over 8th N in Orem. See how deep it is on the wheels of the car in front of us... |
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| See it running down both sides of the street. (darn orange paper.) |
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| That little car across the street is Allyson's. It was actually lifted up by the debris caught under it. See the 'water fountain" directly below it in the picture. That was caused by the fast moving water hitting the slope of the sidewalk/driveway. You can also see the diverted water running across the graveled parking and sidewalk of the neighbor's house. Compare it to the picture below. |
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| After the rain stopped, the kids all went out and started helping clean up. Here Hannah (in black) and Isabell are clearing rocks from the road. |
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| They had quite a bit of work to keep them busy. |
