Wet, wet, wet

[layla]

The weather reports have finally stopped insisting that this is a normal August, rainfall-wise. (It's always this wet! Always! Just keep moving folks, nothing to see here!) Part of this could have something to do with the 70-mile stretch of the Parks Highway (and accompanying railroad) which is currently closed due to bridges getting washed out. For non-Alaskans, the Parks is the main artery connecting us to the outside world. There is another highway, the Richardson, which I'm told is currently bottlenecked, with about a 50-mile stretch of road that's down to one lane due to road construction. The 50-mile figure comes from a co-worker, so I don't know about the accuracy of that, but the Rich is definitely slow as molasses in January right now, as well as being some 70 miles longer than the equivalent trip down the Parks. And the Rich is *normally* the road that washes out when the rivers flood (it's already happened once this year), leading to the scary prospect that we might be completely cut off if something happens to the Rich.

Not that it would be a disaster; there's still air travel, and I'm sure that if Fairbanks did become isolated, getting the roads back online would be a huge priority. (Not that it isn't already.) Still, it's a reminder of how precarious we are up here, and how everything that we use, from gasoline to toilet paper, comes up one of these two roads.

Anyway, we've had ... is it eighteen consecutive days of rain, now? I've started just keeping a set of wet clothes on a chair by the door for walking the dogs. And it was frikkin' cold this morning, too. 42 degrees by the thermometer outside the bedroom. I could see my breath when I took the pack for their morning roam.

Comments

[dewgeist.livejournal.com]

...and it's still better than hot and smoky...but good grief, enough is enough. The one lesson of living here that comes through consistently is that of how far the pendulum of nature can swing from season to season and, at times, day to day.

[laylalawlor.livejournal.com]

Yes, the only consistent thing is the lack of consistency, or as Orion said when we were driving into town this morning and talking about the odd lack of fireweed fluff this fall: "There really isn't a 'typical' year for Fairbanks, is there?"

[dewgeist.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* So it seems...