Inundacion

Woke up to bone-shaking thunder sometime after 5:00am and continued on sleeping until seven. Got over to breakfast to learn that the forest was closed (they can totally do that) due to intense flooding along lots of the trails. The river had risen a decent 6-8 meters since yesterday morning and it rained all through breakfast.

With any hope of going to the field today, snow day (flood day) protocol was put into effect. Back at the office for a little while before going on a 9:00am coffee break with Chops and D. Heard all about floods and evacuations and various other emergency things.

The most entertaining part of the whole morning was reflective vests and custom hardhats for all the people who work tours/reception/administration on the other side of the river. We decided that the project employees were far more fit to handle SAR than the people who don’t go in the forest at all. At least they were prepared.

Took a morning shower and generally goofed off for a good long while before lunch. One of my favorite lunches today; fried rice, refried beans, and French fries (nice & healthy). Despite not being in the field, I was in a pretty good mood all day although found myself frequently bored. Read a lot of stories on ESPN.com, did some coloring with my new crayons.

A good story I forgot to add earlier. So the four of us were standing around our office door, which has the “Come Home Wanchope!" sign on it. Johel (my roommate, Ph.D. student from CR) comes walking over and goes, “He used to me my brother-in-law.” Looks of awe on all faces followed by, “Really?!?,” in unison.

Apparently the man, the myth, the legend was married to Johel’s sister and didn’t like their dog. Just about the coolest thing ever. Almost as cool as when my Spanish 1 & 3 teacher Mr. Garcia told us about how he used to frequent Ricky Martin’s house in Puerto Rico. Famous-people connections are pretty sweet.

After 5:00pm, Debra & I broke the rules and walked down the STR to see the flooding people were talking about. By then it had went down and the trail was passable. As I write, the rain has picked up to a solid clip, but I have my fingers crossed that the forest can be open tomorrow (there’s work that needs to get done!).

Al Gore’s son = laughing out loud. The day off also provided a good chance to stay hip on my current events, pop culture, and other happenings. That’s all for now, maybe a flood picture soon.

BP