We managed to have three days of no rain so I decided to chance it and go up to Madison Monday to see what I can find and see what's going on.
First of all, the flood problems remain around here. The Wapsipinicon was 25 feet and pretty much covered most of Shaw Rd, both the north route going into town and the south route. The river shallowed up the quarry at 151 and also surrounded the old Vet place about 50 feet from the riverbed. I didn't go into Anamosa to really check. But I did not see the road closed sign at Cty Road E34.
For Monitcello, it looks like it could have been worse. The North Fork MaQ around Cascade quickly has gone down but highway 136 South is still closed due to high water in the low spots.
Driving to Dubuque the creek is back in its banks as well as the creek in Plattville, however you can see mud from the cornstalks indicating how far up and how ranging the creek was last friday when they got 10 inches of rain. There is standing water in the cornfields but so far the corn hasn't died. That's the one thing about summer floods. At least with above normal temps, if it does flood it doesn't stay around long.
Madison is tore up with all the road construction out there. Again finding things were hit and miss. Last March when I went up there I didn't find much at HP Books and didn't buy anything at either location. This time out, I didn't find anything at Mad City Music Exchange but did at both HP Books. And didn't find nothing at PrePlayed so didn't bother to go to the other one on the east side of town.
At the old Circuit City place, is a new pawnshop Pawn America and this place had a big selection of used cds. More than four rows! Mostly a lotta crap but I did managed to find a few cheap bargain in the process. But I was very disappointed once again that Cracker Barrel once again ran out of Dumplings so had to order something else. I don't think I'll ever return there again in Madison. Told the waitress always seems like they never have dumplings or they ran out everytime I go there. I seem to have that problem too going to Davenport for Chicken and Dumplins but this is the second straight time I've been up there and was told there was no Dumplins yet.
Did the Lake Monona walk after going to Mad City Music Exchange and walked up to State Street and walked up and down that downtown area. Gawd the change shakers were out in full force always begging for change. I noticed the park area downtown was fenced off, so I'm guessing that there will be new buildings on that patch of land. Such a shame, I liked hanging out in that area...before the panhandlers and change shakers took over. The good news for record stores is that vinyl has been making a big comeback whereas the CD section get less and less space in the stores. I kinda figured by the time I got done looking at The Exclusive Company that I wouldn't have time to go to Strictly Discs unless I wanted to spend the night but didn't. So I went back to Lake Monona.
And the reason I went up there in the first place. It was the full moon cycle tonight and got a treat watching the moon rise above the high rise in Monona and had a nice breeze blowing off the lake. Unfortunely after leaving Madison, I hit every GD red light from there to Dubuque and finally took the long way out of town to avoid anymore lights. And the effort paid off. From that road to home, I had nobody behind me. Only the moon racing me on the way home and no clouds to cover it.
In other words a perfect night.
