The cow stepped up on the flat rock...

Just as we were waking up from a well-deserved nap, the heavens opened.  It started gentle, but morphed from a steady rain to a wind-driven monsoon.  Let me show you what I mean.  Behind our building is a small low spot that isn't really a ditch or a runoff, but becomes one with great encouragement.  And boy it got one today.  Just before it really went gonzo, Laurie came in our room to watch us watching.  When she walked in, it looked like it always does- a low trail in the grass.  Within two minutes:

 

 

 Yep, that there is a full fledged river, complete with rapids.

Here's our hero, saying, "I suppose this means there's no walk today..."

But he was wrong, and here's what the after looked like on that raging torrent...

So anyway, we set off and Scrappy saw a couple of dogs down at the Bark Park, which I am henceforth calling the Hump'n'Dump, because that's all that ever goes on there.  Today's contestants included a huge, beefy boxer named Ronin and a mini-pug named Bella.  I shoulda took some pictures... but we were a bit distracted.  You see, Ronin and Scrappy literally took turns humping each other.  It was amusing to see the King of Thrust getting hoisted on his own petard, as it were, especially with the look of, "Should I be LIKING this?" on Scrappy's face.  Then a little dog named Tubby (or maybe Cubby, I'm not sure) arrived.  Now, Ronin was an in-your-face dog who managed to "kiss" Scrappy everytime he wasn't paying attention; but T/C wasn't into that, and the tiny dog chased the larger dogs away... several times.  Nonetheless, we had places to be...

 

 

 ...and while it LOOKS like a perfectly pleasant day, the truth is it was humidity at OMG%.  It wouldn't be long before another round hit.

As you can see, the widening of the stream really came in handy today...

 

 

 An hour and a half ago, all that was in our back yard.

Now, it was flooding across our usual crossing point.  We had to go near to the bridge to find a way across.

 

 

 You'd think this would slow the joggers down, but seconds later this one guy we've seen before cruised right on by.  He's a freak of nature, though.

 

 

 Remember this mushroom colony from last year?  They're ba-ack...

Just then, that jogger called to us from up ahead to warn us of an upcoming attraction...

...a monstrous Snapping turtle!  Well actually, he was a little guy, though much bigger than the dead one Scrappy found a few weeks back.

 

 "Would you leave me the hell alone!!!"

 

 

Here I was trying to get a comparison shot while Scrappy sniffed the little bugger. But... he got too close, got nipped, and ran away.

Here's my artsy piece o' the day.  I call it, "Raindrops on Asparagus."

 

 

 The new bridge from the trail to the complex is finished!  More on that later...

 

 

 The path from the trail to the sidewalk to the river is paved now, too!

 

 

 Uh-oh, the next round is warming up...

 

 A lot of progress on the walkway to Shoaff...

 

 

 Scrappy has it in his head that we don't need to follow the walkway up to the bridge, when we can cut several yards off by just going up the rise.

Here our hero is watching a pontoon with two people and two doggies go under the bridge.  Later, he would rush me to the end where the bridge wall turns to guardrail to see if they came out on the roadway.  Directionally accurate, but his altitude was up his azimuth, or something like that.

This new walkway is going to be on a scale with the one leading to Appleseed.  Really nice!

 

And we wrap things up with the official first walk across the new bridge back home.

Hopefully, I won't have to edit this later.  For some reason, Blogger, IE, or someone has been eating a picture at random from my posts.  I'll blame it on Blogger, because you always suspect the kid with chocolate on his face of being the cookie thief...