Big Storm, Shopping, and a Nice Ride Up In the Hills With Lots Of Water

Tuesday March 14, 2023 Guerneville CA.

Raining good and hard

That’s what it did last night and into the morning until afternoon sometime when it started to let up.

Going shopping

I’ve been needing to get to the city shopping centers for some time now, so decided it would be a good time to do that.

I left home and headed down to the town of Guerneville, but  never made it as the creek was over the road by the school.

 

Detour

OK, I know another way around that, over Canyon 7, a narrow hilly road, so off I went.

The main road along the river was just barely open with lots of road delays for slides and clogged culverts. Here the guys are trying to unplug a big culvert and we were finally allowed to pass after about a half hour wait.

 

I had to detour a couple of times to get to the shopping center area because of low areas where the water was over the road, but I made it. I went to Walmart to get a new battery for the quad runner I’m fixing up, exchanging my old one at the store and that was all a pain in the butt, plus when I paid for my stuff, the cash register didn’t record most of the stuff and I got caught at the door and had to go back and get it all done again and returning the old battery was a pain as I had to wait in the line for returns which was long. Makes one want to just buy stuff online, eh.

Costco was a bunch easier and I was in  and out.

Should of

All this time I was thinking I missed my chance to go for a ride just after the storm when the water flow would be the best. I should of done that instead of going shopping so was thinking of doing that when I got home as with the recent time change, I had time to do that.

Still flooded

I decided to try the road by the school that was flooded on the way back hoping the water had gone down by now. It did go down but was still across the road, six inches to a foot so I made my way on through it and on home.

I let the chickens out into the front yard and put my stuff in the house.

 

Off for a ride in the forest

My recent repair on the dirt bike’s starter was successful and I headed for the hills and rode  up the trail to our little waterfall. The falls was ripping and there was more water coming down it than there was the other day when we were there.

 

The last time I could cross over here without getting wet, but not today. The spray would of gotten me soaked.

 

Looking down the hill from the falls. You can barely see the dirt bike parked there on the left at the end of the trail.

 

And on past the dirt bike is the beautiful forest. Fresh rain in a forest makes it all special and even magical.

 

I left the falls and rode on up the trail to this spot where the water had washed over the trail a bit. I could of used a shovel to help it out a bit, so I’ll have to come back here, maybe tomorrow.

 

Slide

Just above that I was riding up this road when I ran into this little slide that was blocking the road, so turned around and took another road as I was headed for the top.

 

I ran into my cousin with her two dogs out for a hike so I shot the bull with her for a bit, then headed for the Guerneville overlook at the top.

Guerneville overlook

Guerneville got a good soaking but so far, it hasn’t flooded much as there has been some time between each storm hitting. But Guerneville is known for it’s floods and most people that live down there are used to that.

 

I stopped here at this water crossing on the way going down the hill, headed for home. I’d rocked this crossing in with rocks and it was doing real well.

 

This little stream racing down the hills is actually a falls too, the longest one I saw today.

 

Old bridge

Back home I saw my brother Tom standing on the old bridge that crosses the creek between our houses and he motioned me other there.

It appears part of the old bridge’s footing had washed out, which will be a challenge to repair, but the water will have to go down to do anything about that.

 

Nice day.