California sent us water -- lots of it

Normally, the Lincoln Street creek crossing at Miller Valley is where the illegals gather daily to wait for job offers. But not yesterday. Those much publicized SoCal storms made it here Saturday night. By Sunday afternoon, the creeks that come together at Lincoln were roaring mountain streams
.Not really that deep, but a stream like this runs very fast and can sweep a car downstream before you know it. There have been at least two drivers drowned trying to cross the creek right here, during the time I've lived in Prescott.

Sson drove us up the White Spar to the Granite Creek crossing at Schoolhouse Gulch campground. Plenty of water here!

And here is the Park Avenue bridge across Aspen Creek, normally a trickle. More rain and possibly snow is promised for later this week. We should have a n absolutely gorgeous display of wild flowers down in the desert this February-March -- the rains have been almost perfect. Springtime in the mountains should be beautiful as well. Of course, there's also the much greater importance of this break in our long drought. BTW, 2007-8 were supposed to be La Nina years, i.e., very dry.

Lincoln Street Ducks

To avoid the traffic and the traffic lights when heading to Mom's, I often cut off Grove onto Lincoln Street, using the grade level crossing where the two creeks come together. Despite this year's dryness, there is still a tiny trickle across the street and a puddle between Lincoln and the reconstituted footbridge (above). Lo and behold, one day there was a pair of ducks swimming happily in the puddle. I saw them several times thereafter and managed to get one picture of the female of the pair (below.) Haven't seen them for a couple of weeks, however, so I am assuming that they did the sensible thing and headed for one of the nearby lakes.

I've never before seen a duck in any of the local creeks, not even Granite Creek, until this occasion. There's always a first time, of course. This was it.