A Unique Day

Wow, it has been a crazy day! It just rained, and rained, and rained, in Corpus Christi,(apparently a new record 7.09 inches in one day). On the way into church it was raining so hard and the clouds were so thick that all the street lights were on and we could not go much over 40, and even less in several places. Then after the morning service we looked outside to see if it had stopped; it hadn't. In fact it was flooding, especially where our van was parked, the rain was almost halfway up the front tire. Well, at this time it was just lightly raining so we decided to eat lunch and then see if the water would go down any. After lunch however it was the same depth if not a little bit deeper. So it was determined that the van needed to be moved.

Problems:
1. We were pulled up in the parking lot behind every one else, since all the actual parking places were taken; which would have been fine but so was one other vehicle which made it difficult to move our van out of the puddle/pond.

2. The just mentioned puddle/pond. For any of the guys to get to the van, they would have to wade through deep water and get their shoes and pants VERY wet. So those problems being stated what ended up happening is that I volunteered to take off my shoes and to go out to the car holding my skirt, so as not to get it soaked. My application was accepted and I started out into the puddle/pond. The water was so deep it came up to my knees! Anyway, I safely got to the van, it did still start, and I began to pull forward. However, do you remember that other car? yeah, well it was up high enough to be fine, but if I just pulled in front of it, the back of our van would still be in deep water. So I needed to pull between it and the parked vehicles, there was not much space however. I managed squeeze through the gap fairly well, until I came to a car that was sticking out farther then the rest, that made my gap very small. I had to pause for a bit to try to figure out the best way to maneuver the wheel so as to not hit either car, it was then that I realized I had become a circus act for all the men at church standing under the sheltered area in front of the church. Thankfully just then my brother Robert skirted the edge of the puddle/pond and came to help direct me safely through the gap. After that all was good and dandy for a while, until the owner of the car I pulled around needed to leave before second service, but that was easily handled by Rob moving the van to let him out. We then later had the same problem when everyone wanted to leave, and since at the time I was out close the van dad had me move it for people. Now this time I had to back it up instead of pulling forward but I managed and there was no real problem. After all that I thought we were through with all the adventures for the day...... I was wrong.

On our way back, (before we could get to the freeway) the road was so flooded that the people who lived on either side of the street were out in the rain holding orange cones on top of trash cans to keep people from going to the edge of the road where it was to deep for cars, which was very nice of them to do! Unfortunately the water was still deep enough to splash up into our cars engine area, cause a belt on the van to slip off, which caused the car to over heat a little further down the road. The end result was we ended up stranded in a parking lot. Now Robert was on call today so he'd brought in his work van, and most Sundays my mom takes our Saturn and picks up a lady, (who has been coming to church for a while now, but does not always have means of transportation), so we did have several vehicles in town and we just needed to call mom and Jo so they would know to come and get us. A few problems; dad had left his cell phone at home, and Calvin leaves his at home on Sundays, and I don't have one. Solution; dad had to take off his shoes, go across the street under the freeway to a gas station and find a pay phone. Once again, a problem; dad left his wallet in the car. So he had to come back get change then go use the pay phone. By this time Calvin and I had gone far from being anything anywhere close to serious and were just enjoying sitting back and watching all the idiots try to go through a spot that was even deeper then where we had trouble, in this spot there were already two vehicles stuck dead in the water, we saw a truck push a little car through and then another little car got stranded there. Eventually mom and Jojo come to our rescue! But there was another small problem; they could not get to the side of the road we were on, because it was too deep for their little car. So, Calvin and I, (now with no pride or self dignity), had to take off all shoes, lock up the car, roll up our pants/hold up our skirts, and go walking in front of everyone across the very flooded street. I don't remember just how deep it was but neither of us made it across without getting our cloths wet.

Thus ends my tell of our rather crazy Sunday.