Big Muddy

 The "Big Muddy" is finally back again, it's been a while since the drought has been going on for years. That's what we've always called the river near where we live in Boulder Creek during big rainstorms. The river's real name is the San Lorenzo river. It eventually flows all the way down to meet the Pacific in Santa Cruz.

 There's usually a nice wide beach there at the bottom of these stairs. During the summer this is a good place for wading and to watch the ducks. The river is wide and slow here at this bend, but not when we get so much rain all at once. This was taken on a day where we'd gotten about 5"of rain overnight.

 During big storms we always have to go for a walk on the bridge to check out how high the river level has gotten up to (our version of disaster-mongering.) Usually you'd see concrete flood gate barriers where that line in the river is. But when the river rises they pretty much disappear. Years ago, before all the trouble with salmon die-off they used to block the river here during summer time to make a nice swimming hole for everyone to enjoy.

After the storms, the morning was misty and beautiful. Unfortunately that didn't hold for long, we had several more storms come through over the next few days. My unofficial rain totals for the week was around 15"!