High Winds

We arrived home on November 12th and Ken proceeded to work on getting his Christmas decorations put up. He had several days of good, bad, and ugly weather, but he has finally got the majority of his lights/characters positioned and all the lights are turned on. Because of some really nasty severe weather these last few days, he doesn’t have his huge tree up, but hopes to get it up after the high winds subside.

As all of you may have heard, the last couple days our Pacific Northwest had two huge weather systems pass through which brought very high winds and torrential rain. Today, many areas in Oregon and Washington are flooded and thousands of people are without power. Because of the high winds (up to 129 mph) on the coast (Oregon & Washington) power is out and phones (cell and land line) are not working. All the roads to and from the coast are closed due to many downed trees and flooded roads. Even an area south of Seattle had mud slides closing their roads. AmTrack rail service is closed from Eugene, Oregon all the way north to Vancouver, BC. We heard I-5 (the major Interstate north/south highway) is closed at Chehalis, Washington due to flooding. Our governor has issued a State of Emergency for most of our state because of the damage. Salem (our home) had recorded high winds of 50 mph, but we were spared lots of the damage. Ken did have a couple decorations lean a bit, but they are tied down and won't blow away.

The winds (cyclones) were part of a “Pineapple Express” which came from the southwest and brought warmer (50 degree plus) temps. Prior to the winds, we were in chilly (30 degree) temps. Mount Hood even had lots of snow and opened for some fabulous skiing on Thanksgiving. However, in the next few days, the temps are going to rise causing the freezing level to go up, so the snows will melt and cause the rivers to rise and bring more flooding……not a good situation.

On Saturday, November 30, we braved the very wet weather and drove out to find a 6 foot Christmas tree. We even had a dusting of snow as we were cutting it down (that was nice). We now have the tree up and decorated, things are starting to look a little more like Christmas around here.

I will post pictures of Ken's decorations as soon as the weather gets better to take some.

SPECIAL NOTE: Today is our grandson's 20th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!! The picture below is Justin after he caught a large Salmon while fishing in Alaska. He was 18 then and very proud!!