Sometimes, just sometimes mind you, my imagination runs away and I’m off on a virtual adventure. At least, I’m pretty sure I can blame my imagination. Yesterday on a walkabout next to the creek, Diane and I were looking at all the destruction and mess caused by the severe rainstorms we’ve had during the last couple of weeks. The creek had flooded its banks way, way above the normal flood level. In fact, there was storm debris on bridges that are normally 10 above the water level!! Downed trees everywhere which is what dams the creek up and then the floods start, more trees become unstable and the next thing you know…poof, you have a surreal forest of horizontal and vertical trees with others left dangling at impossible angles held up by their tree brethren until the next big wind or weakened branch brings the dead tree crashing down on hapless hikers. Hmmmm. Of course, the tree corpses just sit in the forest and rot, we wondered how long that takes. Scanning over the landscape I spied this profile but instead of a tree, I imagined a Viking long boat that washed ashore in the flood. Can you see the sea serpent shape of the boat’s bow. That’s a lot more interesting than “just one more log.”This quiet little Accotink Creek turns into a raging waterway during storms. Not being a nature expert, I can only speculate that the winding nature of the creek is just a natural place to have logs jam up and cause flooding. And then the logjam breaks and the backed up water races down to the next bend, and then the next, and… By the time the water turns the 90 degree bend at the baseball fields, it can be 10+ feet over its banks. All the fields are flooded and then parents show up with shovels and wheelbarrows and dig the fields out. It’s messy. But on today’s walk, just a bubbling brook of quietude! 

Sometimes, just sometimes mind you, my imagination runs away and I’m off on a virtual adventure. At least, I’m pretty sure I can blame my imagination. Yesterday on a walkabout next to the creek, Diane and I were looking at all the destruction and mess caused by the severe rainstorms we’ve had during the last couple of weeks. The creek had flooded its banks way, way above the normal flood level. In fact, there was storm debris on bridges that are normally 10 above the water level!! Downed trees everywhere which is what dams the creek up and then the floods start, more trees become unstable and the next thing you know…poof, you have a surreal forest of horizontal and vertical trees with others left dangling at impossible angles held up by their tree brethren until the next big wind or weakened branch brings the dead tree crashing down on hapless hikers. Hmmmm. Of course, the tree corpses just sit in the forest and rot, we wondered how long that takes. Scanning over the landscape I spied this profile but instead of a tree, I imagined a Viking long boat that washed ashore in the flood. Can you see the sea serpent shape of the boat’s bow. That’s a lot more interesting than “just one more log.”This quiet little Accotink Creek turns into a raging waterway during storms. Not being a nature expert, I can only speculate that the winding nature of the creek is just a natural place to have logs jam up and cause flooding. And then the logjam breaks and the backed up water races down to the next bend, and then the next, and… By the time the water turns the 90 degree bend at the baseball fields, it can be 10+ feet over its banks. All the fields are flooded and then parents show up with shovels and wheelbarrows and dig the fields out. It’s messy. But on today’s walk, just a bubbling brook of quietude! 

Sometimes, just sometimes mind you, my imagination runs away and I’m off on a virtual adventure. At least, I’m pretty sure I can blame my imagination. Yesterday on a walkabout next to the creek, Diane and I were looking at all the destruction and mess caused by the severe rainstorms we’ve had during the last couple of weeks. The creek had flooded its banks way, way above the normal flood level. In fact, there was storm debris on bridges that are normally 10 above the water level!! Downed trees everywhere which is what dams the creek up and then the floods start, more trees become unstable and the next thing you know…poof, you have a surreal forest of horizontal and vertical trees with others left dangling at impossible angles held up by their tree brethren until the next big wind or weakened branch brings the dead tree crashing down on hapless hikers. Hmmmm. Of course, the tree corpses just sit in the forest and rot, we wondered how long that takes. Scanning over the landscape I spied this profile but instead of a tree, I imagined a Viking long boat that washed ashore in the flood. Can you see the sea serpent shape of the boat’s bow. That’s a lot more interesting than “just one more log.”This quiet little Accotink Creek turns into a raging waterway during storms. Not being a nature expert, I can only speculate that the winding nature of the creek is just a natural place to have logs jam up and cause flooding. And then the logjam breaks and the backed up water races down to the next bend, and then the next, and… By the time the water turns the 90 degree bend at the baseball fields, it can be 10+ feet over its banks. All the fields are flooded and then parents show up with shovels and wheelbarrows and dig the fields out. It’s messy. But on today’s walk, just a bubbling brook of quietude!