More Blue Ridge Color

The last two weekends of October were pretty much the peak for the color in the Blue Ridge. This pic was taken on October 26...two days later the area was dusted by snow and buffeted by wind, putting an end to the leaf show.

Hillsides were naturally impressionist. Blow the pic up for better color.












The previous Friday, Oct 24, the weather was not quite as good in Charleston. The city was the flat rock and the cow took up residence overhead! 6.57 inches of rain fell during the day. 5.7 of that came down in just 7 hours! There was substantial flooding, both from the rain and the tide, which came up onto Bay Street, driven by easterly winds. In fact, the freeway into Charleston was closed that evening! We wanted to tour the USS Yorktown...shown here...but much of the tour was outside, and it was pouring, plus none of us had serious rain gear. So we aborted the mission. As a rule, when the water puddles on the grass, as in the foreground, it's seriously wet. It was so wet that when we went to dinner, Wendy had Erik carry her from the car to the restaurant! We dissed her for being a wuss, but in all fairness it was raining so hard that there were 3-4 inches of water everywhere in the parking lot, so the only alternatives were wading or being carried. Since no Olympic class weightlifters were on hand, The Old Sloat had to wade. Of course, that's no problem since water is his natural habitat.