CINCO DE MAYO!!!

It's been an interesting few weeks at the lake. The picture to the left was taken on Wednesday, April 27th, the night we went to the bathroom at the park to wait out the storms. There were tornado warnings for all the counties around us.












Here's my friends, Cathy and Ted. They look like they are having a great time, but believe me, looks can be deceiving. We were watching the lightening and listening to the thunder and several friends were calling to give us updates. We were really concerned since tornadoes had touched down all around us. I'm happy to report, however, we were safe and sound in the park. Apparently we are in a sort of valley and never had any high winds to worry about.





















This is the area just outside my door to my camper. You can see the water just sitting on top of the ground. Water everywhere, but not enough to cause the lake to overflow.

This picture and the next shows the water everywhere at the camp grounds.

This stream was two pads over from mine and never has any water in it, but there was so much rain over a period of about a week, this little stream was really running. In the 40 years I lived in Memphis, I've never seen so much water sitting along the I-55 expressway going from Memphis to Sardis, about 45 miles. Creeks, like Hickahala Creek, which are normally just that, small creeks, were actually raging rivers when I crossed them. It was actually kind of scary crossing over them.

For people living along the Mississippi, the reports are not good. Lots of flooding taking in and around the Memphis area, and we haven't reached the crest date yet of May 10th. The news reports are saying this is the worst flood since about 1936. And, in case you didn't hear, there were a total of 74 tornadoes reported during the month of April and we haven't even gotten to tornado month which is May.

For my friends in Costa Rica, Mike, Freckles and Coley, here's a picture of Ted taken with the symetricam feature of my camera. Cathy and I had a really good laugh. Doesn't he look like he's got ears about his ears and a cute round little face.

Now that I've embarassed another friend, I'll sign off. I'll be leaving for St. Louis on Monday to visit friends before I leave this area. On May 19th I'll be headed to Macon, Georgia to visit my friend, Bowden and his family. He and his son, Mat, are even at this moment participating in a 10-day Vipassana retreat, which is a retreat done in total silence. So hold them in you hearts and see them both having an easy time of it.

Blessings to all!!!!