There are times in life when the unexpected happens. Yesterday was such a day. First you need to understand I hate the interstate highway system. These super highways are super efficient at moving folks across the vastness of North America, but they prevent the traveller from actually seeing our beautiful land. When I travel, my goal is to drive back roads as often as possible. I want to see the farms, the small towns, and stop to enjoy unexpected pleasures. The interstates are boring.
Yesterday I hit the jackpot while travelling, perhaps getting a bit more excitement than planned. After an early morning start at the family farm in west central Iowa, Molly and I were driving through the nation’s breadbasket of rural Iowa into Nebraska. This farm land is super rich, and feeds America. There were vast snow melt lakes in all the fields which had resulted from a huge late winter storm which had dumped significant rainfall melting the snowpack. As the ground is frozen, the water has no place to seep … everything floods.
While approaching the Missouri River through backwaters in Iowa, public radio started blaring a flash flood warning. All the water had caused a dike failure. Just before the first radio warning, I had commented to Molly about a dike next to the highway. Both the dike and water level were high above the road.
For the next few miles we drove by farms which were underwater to the second floor of their houses. Thankfully the roadbed was raised, and the valley floor was even a bit lower … then we saw the hundreds of thousands of Snow Geese! The ponding water in the farm fields had attracted migrating snow geese by the thousands. Naturally, I wanted to pull over and observe the spectacle.
The U.S. highway we were on for the moment was limited access. I took the next exit and discovered some issues. We had continued to hear the flash flood warnings on the radio, which I will admit was spooky. When travelling, the counties and geographic locations meant little to us. The advice was to seek high ground. However, where was high ground? Upon exiting U.S. Hwy 275, the first farm we encountered just a few hundreds yards away had a major dike comstruction effort in progress. I quickly decided watching snow geese was not worth getting caught up in a flood. However, while the exit off the highway was open, the entrance ramp was blocked with traffic cones. The ramp was 90% covered with water. I quickly determined the ramp’s shoulder and ground on the uphill side were not water covered. Thanks to my Subaru’s all wheel drive, without putting any wheels in water we were back on the main highway … movimg away from the rising waters.
Twenty miles further down the road the gods of birding and safe travel were on my side. We found an east west highway which would take us across the Missouri River and up high out of the river valley. Just before we climbed the hill, I enjoyed this view of all the migrating snow geese. It was a great specactle … albeit one with a bit more excitement than planned. Our particular flood experience involved Mosquito Creek … never much cared for those darn bugs at home either!
Post Edit: Apparently Molly and I were fortunate to get through this area. The entire stretch of highway was flooded out shortly after we finished our travels.
Video … the sky was full of geese … 360 degrees around me
