Hurricane Irene

Mac and I and some friends had planned on going canoe camping the weekend of August 27-28, but Mother Nature had other plans. She decided to hand us Hurricane Irene instead of a beautiful weekend for camping. Surprisingly, it ended up feeling a little like camping when the power went out at my apartment on Saturday night and Mac and I resorted to wearing head lamps to do our crossword.

The weather was very dreary and windy on Saturday morning, and it started raining in the afternoon. Around 6pm Mac and I went out for a stroll around downtown Princeton just to see how things were going. Most of the stores were closed, but one very nice Italian restaurant was open, so we ended up having a wonderful dinner in a schmancy place while wearing comfy clothes and crocs. Having a hurricane approaching = anything goes!

We made it back to my place before it got really bad, but the power ended up going out rather quickly, then coming back on for about an hour, then going out again and not coming back for two days. This was the view outside my apartment on Saturday night. One emergency light was on in Princeton:

The storm rolled through overnight from Saturday into Sunday and it was still raining on Sunday morning, but by the afternoon the sun had actually come out. Mac and I decided to go check on his kayak, which we had moved to higher ground on Friday evening, and it's a good thing we did! The place were he usually keeps it was completely under water. But this beaver seemed to be enjoying his expanded territory:

This is the chimney were we usually have our bonfires. And that horizontal line in front of it is the top of a picnic table. And this a dozen yards or more away from where the lake usually is. The water was at record levels.

Since we had to move Mac's car, we decided to do a little tour around town to see what else was going on. Here are some rowers looking at the flooded boathouse off of Washington Rd:

And of course, a huge rainbow appeared that afternoon.

We also drove down to Alexander Rd, which was completely flooded out. Here is a little video showing the water rushing under the bridge. Mac and I have canoed under this bridge before. You can tell that at one point the water was rushing over the bridge as well.

And here's a still image of a big log/tree up against the bridge. There was a lot of debris in the water and it was moving really fast. Needless to say, we're glad we decided not to go camping.

And because of all of the local road closures, the University decided to close on Monday and had a delayed opening on Tuesday! It turned into quite a fun and productive weekend. Mac and I cleaned both of our apartments, finished a crossword or two, met up with some local friends, and generally enjoyed a surprise three day weekend.