The Rain Followed Us!

After all the precipitation in Alaska, we were looking forward to lots of warmth and sunshine.  We got sun two days in a row.  Then the RAINS came, dumped on a wide path across Colorado, and stayed for almost a week.  Not good.

At least we were high and dry at Boyd Lake State Park.

The rains and subsequent flooding were referred to as a 500 year flood on local television.  Thousands of people were evacuated by the National Guard.  The photo below shows 5 National Guard Chinook helicopters taking off from Loveland/Ft Collins Airport, which is east of Boyd Lake State Park.

Most of the roads into Windsor, where our son and his family live, were closed due to flooding.  After the rains had ceased and the waters started to recede, we drove over to Eastman Park.  Here is where our grandson, Nate, plays soccer, all under water.

The next two photos are the Poudre River where the channel runs behind Eastman Park.  It normally is a small stream, which turned into a river miles wide at some points.  

The next day, we scoped out another trail we liked to ride during our summers in Loveland.  Most of it follows the Big Thompson River.  Somewhere, under the muddy mess is the sidewalk/bike trail.

I got close enough to take a picture of a boat, still on it's trailer, sitting smack dab right on the bike path!

We were scheduled to leave on Monday morning and head west on I-70.  However, we woke up that morning to more rain (ugh) and high winds.  Then we saw there was a snow storm on the I-70 interstate and chains were required!  That did it for us.  We hunkered down and waited out the storm.  As you can see in the photo below, it was sunny and dry.  Time to move on.

As we left, I took a picture of the newly snow dusted mountains off to the west of the park.  It was the FIRST day of fall.  Seriously, since when does it have to snow to mark the first day of autumn?