We left Columbia, Missouri, yesterday morning, driving east on Interstate 70. At Indianapolis, we angled southeast on Interstate 74 and spent the night in Cincinnati after visiting with family members. This morning, we headed northeast on Interstate 71, passing through Columbus, and continuing on toward Cleveland, eventually turning east along Interstate 76 to Kent, Ohio. There we will spend the next week in a family cottage along Sandy Lake, southeast of Kent.
Throughout our journey, the rivers and creeks of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio were bank full and many had spilled across their floodplains. The recent storm system had dropped torrential rains across the region and the effects were widespread; while even the largest rivers (the Mississippi, the Wabash, the White, the Whitewater, the Great Miami and the Scioto) were markedly swollen, some of the most dramatic flooding had occurred along smaller streams, including Hurricane Creek in east-central Illinois and Big Walnut Creek in west-central Indiana.
While evidence of the deluge diminished northeast of Columbus, cool, wet, cloudy weather enveloped most of the Midwest and is still plaguing northeast Ohio this evening. In fact, such conditions are forecast for much of the coming week but we'll make the most of our stay in this lake-studded corner of the State. Indeed, I plan to file my first eBird report from Sandy Lake tomorrow.
