The dam tour

One of my favorite scenes in the National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation is the scene of the dam tour.  It is so funny on so many levels.  We folks here in Western Kentucky also have a pretty cool dam....no not anywhere near the caliber of the Hoover Dam, but it works.

Ours is actually two dams, but I prefer one over the other.  We have Barkley Dam (named after  a former Vice President Alben Barkley) and Kentucky Dam.  It is the later that I like.  Ever since I was a small child I have always liked driving over the dam.  It feels so much safer than a bridge and it is awesome.  A few years back they rerouted the road that went over the dam.  It is not as thrilling as driving on top of the dam, but you do have a great view of the spillway.  And when that water is pouring over the top, it is a grand sight.

In May of 2011, we had just finished getting rained on from what seemed like forever.  Everything was flooded.  The floodgates were installed in Paducah to save our town. Levees were blown so the flood waters would not drown Cairo Illinois.  People were homeless because their homes were flooded.  Businesses where ruined because of flood waters.  It was pretty much as bad as the ice storm was in 2009.

The sunshine of this day was so welcome.  It was the day before Mother's Day, the day before my birthday, and God had put a rainbow in the sky just the night before...the flood was over!!!

For my birthday, John wanted to take me to Patti's and of course I was more than okay with his decision.  I just put the stipulation that we could go over the dam.  I was sure it was fuller than I had ever seen it.

So here we go, taking the dam tour.  I have many pages documenting the flood of 2011 because it was so vast. Most are for documentation purposes only and not much to look at, but this one is my favorite.  Take the photos out of context and you can just see the beauty of that water spilling over the dam.  Put them back in context and it is hard to image that something so lovely can be so terrible!!

I was inspired on the layout by Mojo Monday 231.  It was the perfect way to showcase my dam photos.  The circle to me could represent the "cloud" I wanted on my layout.  I have puffed it out because it represents all the days of rain that we had.  The flowers represent the rebirth/life that would come from that little cloud.  My color choices are happy colors because we would be happy again!  We had all banded together to help each other and it was beautiful like my color choices.  It is a time I shall never forget, but would not want to relive.  I am so grateful that God saved our towns. I am sorry for the crops and homes that were lost, but thankful that to my knowledge no lives were lost.

Hopefully we will not ever experience a flood like this here again..