Ya know, when I came up with a list of reasons why going to the Wisconsin State Fair on a Wednesday was better than going on a Saturday, I overlooked the most important one of all: not drowning.
Geez Louise, have you seen the news out of Milwaukee?! The 10″+ of rain that fell on the fairgrounds, the flooding, the mad scramble to evacuate? These are not my photos (thankfully):
Around 9 p.m., they closed the fair due to severe thunderstorms and torrential rain. Which meant no cream puffs or pig races or Lynyrd Skynyrd for the poor souls who’d decided to go Saturday night. Some folks had only just arrived before they were ushered out.
(We saw the 2000s version of Lynyrd Skynyrd years ago in Vancouver, WA. They put on a great show. Damn shame there was no “Freebird” in West Allis last night, but I suppose getting home alive was more important.)
Earlier in the day, Tara and I were out running errands, and the sky was looking ominous.
Thunderstorms rolled in late in the evening, but nowhere near as intense as what was taking place at the fairgrounds, an hour northeast of us. We sat on the deck for awhile, watching lightning flash across the sky nonstop, until it started raining. Little did we know Milwaukee neighborhoods were inundated, basements were flooded, and people were trapped in their cars.
We were awakened early this morning by more thunder, and it rained hard all morning before finally petering out by early afternoon. We ended up with over 3″ in a little over 12 hours, which is pretty impressive, but nothing like this:
Those are some insane rainfall totals. The kind I associate with the Deep South, not the western shore of Lake Michigan. Now they’re saying this might be categorized as a 500-year flood.
Isn’t climate change a hoot?!
Today was supposed to be the last day of the fair, but they were forced to stay closed. Sucks for the vendors and all the people who had tickets but never got to go.
The Only Monarch I Support
On a lighter note, last week we were treated to the emergence of a monarch butterfly on our front porch. And there’s another one (pardon the pun) waiting in the wings. It was super cool to see the evolution of the whole process, from caterpillar to green chrysalis to black chrysalis to butterfly – all in the span of just 11 days.
Nature is pretty g-d wild when it isn’t trying to kill you, huh?
Mark My Words 
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