Because it Rained
Wednesday my class sat through 6.7 hours of veterinary business management training. It was a long day, but strangely I did not grow very weary of it (I think that exercising in the morning works wonders.). The speaker (Fritz Wood) supplied enough anecdotes to grab my attention and provided enough controversial (to me) ideas to keep my mind moving a bit. Maybe I'll write about my ponderings tomorrow.
Yesterday was unlike any other. I started for school at 6:19 and did not reach it until ~10:50.
The previous night there was some flooding at the stop light just to the east of the Willamette River on Hwy 34. I got to drive through a large and deepish puddle and they routed us to drive in a west-bound lane.
Flooding is exciting to me (there I go again, showing my immaturity), and yesterday as I travelled north toward 34 I wondered if the road would still be partly flooded. The Willamette seemed higher than I had noticed it before, so I was somewhat hopeful. I reached 34, and found that it was completely blocked going to Corvallis. I tried to find Hwy 20 without going into Albany, and ended up asking at a gas station and being misdirected such that I ended up back on Hwy 34. I then sat in Albany for 45-60 minutes, creeping along in traffic headed for Hwy 20. A conservatively dressed professional lady driving a white Mercedes with a Montana license plate (or tag, if you prefer) gestured for me to allow her in front of me. As she waited for an opening she seemed to be checking a map on her built-in touch screen computer.
After a while she came back to inform me that Hwy 20 was backed up for 11 miles (as she had learned from the police whom she called). Later she informed me that she had cancelled her seminar and would return next month. She was certainly in a much worse scenario than I (who only missed my classes for the day). It was a nice encounter in spirt of the circumstances.
Then thought I, if 20 is backed up 11 miles and since it took me an hour to go about 0.5 mile (maybe it was closer to 1), wouldn't it take me forever to actually reach Corvallis that way? So I headed north on 99E, hoping to find a road that would cross over to 99W and allow me to enter Corvallis from the north; or, variously, planning to go all the way to Salem (perhaps I should get an Oregon atlas so my ramblings are based on more than my senses of direction and adventure).
I ended up having way too much fun. I drove through Jefferson, crossed the freeway and travelled Sunnyside road, took Kuebler for a long way. It ascended a hill and I ended up in a very affluent neighborhood. Went down the hill and engaged River Road. Seeing a sign for Independence, I tried to go that way but turned around when I saw the "Road Closed in 8.5 Mi due to High Water" sign. Went all the way through Independence, failed to catch the turn onto 99W, went down the Corvallis Rd to Lewisburg, and finally made it to OSU. I felt out of it and somewhat stupid.
I suppose that I could have gone down to Junction City or have waited out the traffic on Hwy 20 (which would probably have been faster). But then I wouldn't have gotten to see all the delightful scenery and it was not nearly as much fun.
It sounds like the flooding resulted because a dam was opened upstream (likely done to restore the dam space for future rain).
Yesterday was unlike any other. I started for school at 6:19 and did not reach it until ~10:50.
The previous night there was some flooding at the stop light just to the east of the Willamette River on Hwy 34. I got to drive through a large and deepish puddle and they routed us to drive in a west-bound lane.
Flooding is exciting to me (there I go again, showing my immaturity), and yesterday as I travelled north toward 34 I wondered if the road would still be partly flooded. The Willamette seemed higher than I had noticed it before, so I was somewhat hopeful. I reached 34, and found that it was completely blocked going to Corvallis. I tried to find Hwy 20 without going into Albany, and ended up asking at a gas station and being misdirected such that I ended up back on Hwy 34. I then sat in Albany for 45-60 minutes, creeping along in traffic headed for Hwy 20. A conservatively dressed professional lady driving a white Mercedes with a Montana license plate (or tag, if you prefer) gestured for me to allow her in front of me. As she waited for an opening she seemed to be checking a map on her built-in touch screen computer.
After a while she came back to inform me that Hwy 20 was backed up for 11 miles (as she had learned from the police whom she called). Later she informed me that she had cancelled her seminar and would return next month. She was certainly in a much worse scenario than I (who only missed my classes for the day). It was a nice encounter in spirt of the circumstances.
Then thought I, if 20 is backed up 11 miles and since it took me an hour to go about 0.5 mile (maybe it was closer to 1), wouldn't it take me forever to actually reach Corvallis that way? So I headed north on 99E, hoping to find a road that would cross over to 99W and allow me to enter Corvallis from the north; or, variously, planning to go all the way to Salem (perhaps I should get an Oregon atlas so my ramblings are based on more than my senses of direction and adventure).
I ended up having way too much fun. I drove through Jefferson, crossed the freeway and travelled Sunnyside road, took Kuebler for a long way. It ascended a hill and I ended up in a very affluent neighborhood. Went down the hill and engaged River Road. Seeing a sign for Independence, I tried to go that way but turned around when I saw the "Road Closed in 8.5 Mi due to High Water" sign. Went all the way through Independence, failed to catch the turn onto 99W, went down the Corvallis Rd to Lewisburg, and finally made it to OSU. I felt out of it and somewhat stupid.
I suppose that I could have gone down to Junction City or have waited out the traffic on Hwy 20 (which would probably have been faster). But then I wouldn't have gotten to see all the delightful scenery and it was not nearly as much fun.
It sounds like the flooding resulted because a dam was opened upstream (likely done to restore the dam space for future rain).
posted by Claire at 19:10
2 Comments:
You drove clear up to Jefferson and back down? And only for one class? Now that is impressive (and more than I would do)! Maybe I'm immature too, but I love the excitement of flooding, so long at it isn't anyone's house. I think sometimes we're too used to a tamed and beaten down nature it's fun to to have a gentle reminder that our buildings and parking lots sit on top of a whole lot of all-natural dirt :)
Anna, I wasn't so very honorable as you assume. I had to work that evening and I wanted to go to the vet Bible study... and besides, once I've set out to do something I don't like to be defeated.
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