Big sloppy kiss to the first person who can tell me why I named her Louise.
Tweets and Floods
Unless you're my Facebook friend, you may not have noticed that I was in North Dakota for four days over last weekend. The reason Facebook matters at all in this topic is because my father got a new phone, an HTC Touch, about 5 minutes before we left town and I spent the entire trip futzing around on the internet on his new phone.
Unfortunately, it was about 8 hours into the trip before I figured out how to fix the cookie settings to check my Gmail and sign into Twitter, so the only communication service I had was Facebook. Here are the untwittered status updates from the 13 hour drive to Bismarck, which you may have already seen (and mocked) on Facebook:
- Jane is hurrying up to wait. Headed north as soon as Wags arrives from Chambana. Feeling nervous, nauseous, and nihilistic, per usual.
- Jane is in Beloit and bored already.
- Jane will never take Duke to Fuddruckers again.
- Jane just passed the Baraboo exit.
- Jane is at Linden Station.
- Jane is 4 miles from Oakdale. But not the one from As the World Turns.
- Jane is singing "Say a Little Prayer" with my mom. The 3 sleeping passengers are not amused. Black River Falls, WI.
- Jane is trying to figure out how Duke is sleeping now, of all times to be able to sleep.
- Jane Eau Claire!
- Jane is filling gas in Menomonie.
- Jane bought some Kum & Go underpants.
- Jane is on the far side of Minneapolis with a long way to go.
- Jane is watching snow fall at the Middle Spunk rest area.
- Jane passing Fergus Falls exit - freezing rain
- Jane is in Moorhead and is thinking of Veruca
- Jane is answering Duke's question "why do I feel like I've been here before?" At Schatz Crossroads, derp.
- Jane is between Fargo & Jamestown. Feels like just yesterday I was saying never again.
- Jane has the world's largest bison to my right.
- Jane just watched a car hit some ice and then the ditch. So we have the interstate all to ourselves again.
- Jane is at a rest area west of Medina. Hour & a quarter to go.
- Jane can't believe how much snow is still on the ground here.
- Jane is standing in the city of my birth.
My brother has gone blind from rolling his eyes at the micro-blogging. I just know it.
Anyway. We were in NoDak for a very special event, my Great-Grandma Clara's 97th birthday party. Grandma is doing well, and enjoyed the day, although I think we drained her hearing aid battery about 10 times over.
This is Grandma with her cake:
Grandma with a handful of the great-grandkids that were there:
Grandma with the grandkids that were there and their spouses:
Before and after the party, we spent the weekend chilling at a hotel, playing cards, swimming in the pool, and catching up with a near-constant stream of relatives from both sides of the family. A warning to my family: I really liked this method. You may never see me in North Dakota without a hotel key in my hands again. I realize that this limits the towns I will visit (and pretty much excludes my hometown of Max completely, I'd say) but c'mon. Swimming pool, maid service, wireless internet, Starbucks across the street. I'm hooked.
We left Bismarck at 6:30 am on Monday morning, hell bent on getting out of town before a blizzard hit, and we just barely made it. Sections of I94 were closed due to the storm according to the news reports I read on Tuesday morning. Also compounding the issue was the massive flooding that is happening across the entire state of North Dakota right now. Lucky (for us only) the worst of that is happening right now, and we were only witness to the very beginning.
Much like the 1997 flood, when we were also in town the weekend before it hit. I'm going to pretend this is only a coincidence.
Here is a video that I shot as we approached Fargo. I94 looked pretty much like this the entire length of the trip from Bismarck to Fargo - like driving down a dock with water on both sides. These are ditches and fields, not creeks and lakes.
We only saw a one-lane section of road, going the other direction, that was blocked off due to water, somewhere around Valley City, I think. In Fargo, I shut the camera off right before we passed a semi load of sandbags with a police escort racing across a highway perpendicular to the interstate. Sobering. I get the feeling I will not have any urban legend "North Dakota doesn't need FEMA's help" emails filling my inbox this time around.
My cousin Jessica has been keeping me informed, as well as the updates on the Bismarck and Fargo news sites. It's bad, and looks to get worse, so if you have a spare space in your thoughts and prayers, please think of the residents of North Dakota.
It seems like North Dakota can't just have a flood and call it a day. In 1997, Fargo and Grand Forks flooded, and then Grand Forks burst into flames. No, really. Buildings downtown burned while firefighters fought the blaze from boats in the flooded streets. The 2009 flood underway now is compounded by record snowfalls, the blizzard that we outran on Monday, and ice dams that require explosives and salt dropped from helicopters. They don't have small uninteresting floods there, for sure.
It has only been about a year and a half since the flood here at home, where Duke and I got an inch of water in the basement of our house on top of the hill, while our neighbors lost their basements & foundations, and our mayor honeymooned. I remember all too well the surreal feeling of standing at my kitchen window and watching Red Cross trucks drive up and down my own street.
I don't know of any friends or family who are in immediate danger right now, but honestly, they have more important things to worry about than keeping out-of-state relatives informed. I am just like the rest of you, watching, waiting, and also feeling a little bit guilty for driving so fast away from it.
Day 20, and an Update
I just updated the 101 in 1,001 list and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
I have changed "Take swimming lessons" to an in-progress item, because I advanced quite a bit in the hotel pool in Bismarck, and I'm actually excited about taking real swimming lessons based on how much I learned from Duke and my mom and brother over the weekend.
The "Diner's, Drive-Ins, and Dives" item is half-complete after our stop at Donatelli's in White Bear Lake, MN on the way home from North Dakota.
Here's Dad, out front:
And Duke, with a cheese issue:
I've completed one item. I learned to play Euchre with Duke on Saturday. I'm not good at it. But I learned. And that's all I promised him.
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