And then the skies opened up...

Since we have been here, Alaskans have been telling us that the wonderful sunny weather we were having was not typical of August. Well, Tuesday night I believe the ocean started to try to take Anchorage back.

It started off with a big thunderstorm. Now, as midwesterners, we are used to thunderstorms, however these are rare in Alaska. I was talking to one native Alaskan who had never even seen lightning before Tuesday, and could not stop talking about it. The weird thing is, although the lightning never got too close to us (using the old seconds to thunder test), when it did thunder, it reverberated off the mountains for like 15 seconds, which is very weird.

To make it worse, there is a 7,000 acre fire happening in Kodiak which makes now the air in Anchorage smell like a wet fireplace.

So I woke up on Wednesday to rain, which was alright. The problem was, it has not stopped raining. Once again, being midwesterners, we say, alright and go about our business. Problem is, Anchorage does not have the super-excellent gutter system that we are used to. It did well until about noon from what I hear, when all the gutters filled up in different areas of town causing water levels to rise dramatically.

Here is a report from Anchorage Daily News. Here are some pictures we took while driving around:

Urban Flood Warning

Galileo is perplexed by the rain...

More Flooding

Now you might say why were we driving around...we had to pick up Frank's car from the shop, where we were checking for oil leaks. Well, when we got there, the entire car lot for the shop was under 2 ft. of water! Frank had to wade through it to get to the shop to try to get the tracker out. Luckily, the car is fine -- the floor and passenger seat is wet, but the engine was working just fine.

Now don't feel too bad for us, because we now have a loveseat and a coffee table! The rest is landing at the port around Sept 15th. Here are some pictures of the new furniture:


New Couch and Coffee Table!


Kandinsky