Road to Spring

This weekend my wife and I got just a small taste of how things are going in North Dakota. Her friend's parents live right on the Red River, and as such they spent most of last week filling sandbags and piling them into massive dikes behind their house. While the river was expanding, and they were stonewalling (or sandwalling, as it were), they got dumped on by rain and snow, even to the point of blizzard conditions. Eager to help, we left for Fargo after work on Friday and got there in time to help out at a local golf course where the river was threatening not only the course, but the entire neighborhood nearby. We spent about an hour and a half chucking sandbags around with 100 strangers, who were extraordinarily friendly and upbeat, despite the week of cold weather and hard work.

The next day things were pretty quiet, despite the unbelievable amount of flooding that was taking place. We helped out around the house a little, but mostly there was a sense of collective anticipation, or possibly anxiety, as people weren't sure what to do but wait. The dikes had been built and fortified, and until something happened, there just wasn't a whole lot left to do. We called the volunteer hotline again around 11am and were told of a sandbagging effort that was to take place in a nearby town in an hour and a half, but when we got there a policeman told us that there was, again, nothing left to do. And so even though we only got in a little bit of actual sandbagging, it was nice to go up and help out as best we could.

So yeah, between that and working far more than I usually do, it's been a hectic few weeks. Good, to be sure, but a little busier than normal. Our school's spring play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, opens in a few weeks and things are coming together very well. My little brother is getting married in a few weeks, my dad had a birthday, and we even made it up to The Brass Rail for some (what else?) delicious chicken, followed by an evening of Dominos with Sarah. Good times all around, I must say. God is good.