On Wednesday we got some crazy rain. Jesse and I had to go out, so we put on his rain jacket and ventured out during some light rain. Before we got down the hill it was pouring; windshield wipers were on the highest setting and we had to slow way down so I could kinda see where I was going. We made it to where we were going, and waited in the car for it to let up a bit. Then we made a dash for the building and arrived soaked and with me completely out of breath (it's hard work carrying Jesse from the car, to the building, up the stairs...) I watched my video that I had to (in order to get an epidural here, they made you watch this video for liability insurance), and we headed out. It was still raining pretty hard, but I figured that we could get wet since we were just going home. So, I let Jesse walk in the rain and he loved it. We both got completely soaked but that's okay. But, now the interesting part....it had been raining the whole time we were inside and the drainage system here in Abilene is pretty bad. We quite often see streets completely flooded with just a little rain. So, for me to get home I have to go down this one street that has a low spot right before rising up on a little hill by the stop sign. There's enough room for about 1 car on the high spot. As we approached this intersection, I noticed a lot of running water flowing across the road. I watched one car go through very slowly, and decided to hang back on dry ground while the truck in front of me went through and waited at the stop sign. I'm glad I did. The water was above the wheels on his truck. He cleared the intersection, and since I had no choice but to go forward, I made my way through the running stream as quickly as possible, hoping that my wheels would stay in contact with the pavement. They always have these warnings on the news about not getting swept into a ditch and how much it costs to have the authorities come rescue you. We made it through just fine, but on the way home our engine started steaming really bad (but no warning lights were going off, so I figured we were okay), and our brakes were making horrible sounds. So, a word to the wise, when the rain starts falling in Abilene, just stay home...

PS - our van is running fine now, no more steaming engine or funny sounding brakes...and our tires are really clean!

I didn't actually see any funnel clouds, but apparently this was taken the same day as the big rain.