Checking out our river

I thought I would see if I could get close to the American River on my way to the gym, and I never made it to the gym, by the way.  I turned over several roads that have river access and they were all closed due to flooded conditions.

I finally found a road leading to near where we used to live, and was able to walk a little ways.  I really didn't recognize what I was looking at - things are so different now than they were in the 1980's when we had a big flood that reached the backs of the properties across the street from us.

I took a few photos, including one of the footbridge during drought conditions.  That was one of the spots I couldn't drive close to today, but I can tell you water has breached the bed of the bridge and very little of it shows above the waterline.

It was a beautiful sunny day and a lot of people were out walking and riding along the bike trail.

I read a good explanation of why CA is still in a drought condition in many places.  The rain falls and fills the reservoirs, dams, and rivers, as well as the surface areas all over the state.  But there isn't enough of it to replace the ground water lost during all those dry years, with more and more people and businesses pumping ever deeper to reach it.  So technically when you consider the amount of water held in the ground, we are in a drought.  One of the problems, so I've read, is that the weight of the surface has pushed the ground levels down so there isn't the space for as much water to collect underground.  It's all nearly too much for me to understand, but I thought this explanation is as good as I'm going to hear.

I talked to my son, Steve, a few minutes ago and he says they are fine.  He doesn't think he is in any danger.  His in-laws are still with them.

My camera is broken where the battery compartment lid keeps popping off, so I couldn't use it to take photos at the river.  I used my Jitterbug phone, but what you can do with a photo is very limited, so the easiest thing is for me to send them to Donald's phone, and he downloads them and sends them back to me in a format I can use.  I'm sure there must be a way for me to do it, but it's probably contained in the instruction book I received with the phone years ago.  I don't read instructions unless all else fails, and by then I usually can't find them!  I'm going to go ahead and  publish my blog, and if I get the pictures back within the next hour or two I will update the blog.  I'm hoping to get to sleep early tonight as I have to drive to Folsom tomorrow morning for a physical therapy appointment.