I see the sun!

We put off this week's first short run due to rain and the need for a break after Saturday. This paid off big-time because the weather attempted to claw its way back to something resembling seasonal averages and now even included real sunshine. Four miles for today.

According to wunderground.com, we had 0.85" of rain yesterday and it really shows on greenery in the river bottom. The first trail even had to be mowed already. I'm always amazed at how well the soil recovers from rain in this flat area - all that precip. 24hrs ago and it's totally firm. Some of the trail we ran on Saturday probably has a couple inches of slimy mud on top right now and would be impossible to use without damaging it and that's only 1/2 mile from here.

Cutting through Howell Station (I think?) campground to get across the river. Some signs of  life here, there are several large 5th-wheel campers/houses scattered around (just not in my picture).

Red-Rock dam repair construction now completed I think, which means the highway has been open across the top. I'm not totally sure what all the projects were, but part of it was to rebuild some seized winches for the flood gates (gray sections below the road in the picture below) which have been down for a while.

I happened to remember, when I saw the flood level sign in the campground, that this pedestrian bridge was under water about half-way up the hand-railing in 2008 and where I'm standing right here was under water above my head. I'll have to take a picture of the max. flood level sign sometime (max. level was in 1993).

Ran out of dirt and still had to make up some more mileage, we're off to a different campground via the paved trail.

Arriving at Ivan's campground, there has been a bunch of cleanup work here but it still doesn't look like it will be opened this year. It was damaged somewhat in the 2008 flooding and has been closed since.

The area on the right with timbers around it was a sand-pit for the playground. This entire area was completely under water, including the bathrooms and everything to where the road ends in the back there.

On the way back to the vehicle and it's getting a little cloudier but it's still nice out and we didn't get rained on.