floods

I talked to my old friend, Jane, just a few minutes ago. She lives near Cedar Rapids, Iowa where they're experiencing horrible flooding. She was evacuated from work today, the schools are full of flood refugees, and all the bridges going into downtown Cedar Rapids are closed. They're also having historic flooding in Des Moines and other towns along the Cedar River. Her voice brought back memories of the tornado and one of my most vivid images...the sight of people sleeping on cots at the Armory. So much bad weather this spring.

There is a report on one of the state newspaper's websites of cows flying through the air on 94 by Fergus Falls. That seems a little preposterous but it happened in Twister so how do I know. It could happen. All I do know is that on Sunday, I drove on that road. Uh oh. I think those Dakotans make their vodka out of potatoes and maybe that's the explanation.

Regis and I rarely undertake home improvement projects. They just don't interest us much which is probably why the neighbor (not the neighbor with the red trailer) wants to paint our garage. Today we ordered a new kitchen light fixture. Since we moved in here, we've had the two round fluorescent bulbs that have probably been there since the 50s when the house was built. I wouldn't have had any great desire to change that except they burned out and we can get a 15 dollar energy star rebate from smmpa on a new one. I did a google search and I can't believe there aren't pictures of those fixtures on the web. Those are antiques!

Regis tried driving 65 mph all the way home on Sunday and saved 15% on our gas mileage. I know we sound cheap but that's not it. It just seems to make sense to conserve resources when we can. I talked to Arvin, our trusty mechanic, today and he said 55 is about the optimum speed. He's noticed lots more people driving slower on 169 between St. Peter and Mankato since the price of gas went up. thanks to Jimmy Carter for that.

I read this headline in the paper today:

40 rude traveling salespeople evicted from Moorhead motel


but I read it as:

40 nude traveling salespeople evicted from Moorhead motel


That's enough for today. Tomorrow we motor to Rochester so I'll be OOT for a while.

Comments

PP said…
Did you happen to read Thomas Friedman's NY Times article a few weeks back about fuel prices? He has some really good points. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/opinion/28friedman.html

Also, I saw that John McCain referenced Jimmy Carter, too, when commenting on Barack Obama's energy plans for the future. Some commentators weren't sure if the historical reference would resonate with 21st century voters, and if young Americans were wondering why McCain would pick on an old guy who builds houses for poor people!

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