Oh The Places You'll Go - Red River Rising‏

I don't know how many of you have paid attention to the widgets on my side bar over there, but one of them is the slide show, "Oh the places you'll go," which is filled with pictures I've taken. I am NOT a photographer. I use cheap point and shoots, but these pictures mean something to me, either the time, the place, or the people. They take me back. I have been planning on explaining them for a while, but never have gotten around to it.

But at least some of them are topical now, so I figured it was time to do it.

If you didn't know, the Red River in the center of North America is flooding, and threatening Fargo at the moment. While there are a lot of factors, recent heavy snows, a slow flowing river on extremely flat land, and the fact that the river flows NORTH so that the snow melts in the upper part of the drainage basin first, sending the floods and ice dams "down river" where it is still frozen all contribute.
Last time I was up for a family reunion, it was summer (Poo, that 4 months that you DON'T use the block heater in the Pontiac and the sun doesn't set until 10:00 pm), but the Red River was flooded then too.

We were getting together in the border town of Emerson, Manitoba (Yes, named after Ralph Waldo). One of the events was supposed to be a golf scramble. It was called off, because the water hazards were a little large.



Look carefully: That tiny red spot out there? Yes, that's a flag on top of a green pin. Emerson is a cute, but dying town. The border crossing used to funnel traffic thru town, but now, it runs west of town a little bit. Progress can be sad.



This shot has nothing to do with the flooding, it's just one of the old family churches out toward Ridgeville with the beautiful blue prairie sky in the background.

After we left Emerson, we drove north a bit to the largest cultural and metropolitan area for hundred of miles. The Mecca that is Winnipeg. You laugh, but get out a map. I think Honolulu may be a slightly more isolated metropolitan area. Barely.



There is a beautiful bridge downtown over the Red River. (Yes, I know technically, the pedestrian bridge and the vehicular bridge are separate, but they form a whole.) The weather that day sucked. Off and on thunderstorms which couldn't have helped the already overflowingness of the river. But still nice down there by "The Forks".

This last shot isn't on the Red River. It's only about 325 miles due west. But that ditch between the highway and grain elevator is the mighty Souris River, so I'll toss it in, too. Weyburn, SK. My dad grew up outside of town. For all the nothing that you drive thru to get there. Some of the nothing can be pretty darn spectacular.

(Yes, I was very unlinky for me. But, you're at a computer. You've got Google. Go for it.)