Day 48 Weyburn, Saskatchewan: Deluged!

June 17, 2011

When we checked into a motel here in Weyburn, we were whimpily responding to a few showers. We didn't know that the skies would open and drown the city shortly thereafter. Boy, are we lucky to be in here!

A serious amount of water is hitting this area. For any farmers who were thinking about seeding, it's game over.

It rained hard all night, and we woke to booming thunder and strong winds from the north east. We put on our full rain suits and swam over to the the motel office to say we would stay another day.

Rig pigs attack the breakfast bar, but we are in there too, stocking up on food to keep us going for the day. Everyone's attention is on the weather channel, because it is nuts out there!

100% pickup trucks of the 100% oil workers that drive the local economy, except us!

Now at 9 a.m. as I am writing this I keep getting up and going to the window, because it sounds like trains are going by. There are no trains here, it's all heavy rain making the noise.

We can not use this day to go see the city, such as it is, because we barely made it to the motel office.

The rig pigs have all left the motel, leaving us to huddle under the covers.

Around 4 p.m. we peeked out our door and verified that the rain had stopped, although the wind continued very strong. We decided to try to walk around the town. The first problem was that flooding around the motel, which is near the Souris River, blocked most routes of escape. I managed to leap a small torrent, but Dodie had to commandeer a lady in a mini van for a ferry ride through.

The flooded Souris River across the street.

The river truly is high, running just under the bottom of the bridge. Our fight with wind and water was scarcely worth it. We could find little of nothing charming or interesting in the town. It seems any such stuff has been mostly cleaned out, in favour of Dairy Queen, low rise mini malls, and general emptiness.

On the way back we encountered a city crew trying to pump out one road. They told us that the campground where we almost went is under water! We then got a bit trapped on some high ground, and they came and ferried us to the motel. I got thrown to the floor of the pickup bed as it hit the unseen curb. I was able to protect the camera as I flew, so all is well.

Tomorrow we are hoping for less wind and waters that will at least let us cycle out.

This is not really serious flooding here in the town, but we can imagine that farmers who seeded recently or have not seed yet are crying. We ourselves seem to have dodged the bullet for now, at the mere cost of two nights in an overpriced motel. If not for that, though, these flowers downtown could have been us.

...but will we be able to cycle out tomorrow?

Through the early part of this blog we shared our experiences trying to use the Garmin Edge 800. This became so complicated that we transferred the story to a separate article. That article is now more or less complete. Have a look at it. The link is http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?doc_id=8816

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