Happy Birthday, George (updated)

The river is rising from the rain and the melting snow. It is approaching the top of its banks. The USGS river gauge site says the river is a bit above eight feet, but it has been erratic lately. It looks more than eight feet to me.

The ice-free roads gave me a chance to get out of town and look around. I passed by the railroad on CR 400S where last July I noticed a new platform. I had no idea of why it was there, but took a picture anyway.

The platform looked a lot different today. It had a little house on it. 

And from the other construction around the intersection it appears that there will soon be a gate on this crossing. This crossing was mentioned at a County Commissioners meeting in December because CSX wanted permission to use some of the road's easement for the gate. The Commissioners thought the gate a good idea so had no objection to the railroad using some of the road's easement.

At one time today was a Federal Holiday--George Washinton's Birthday. Now Washington's Birthday is combined with Lincoln's in Presidents' Day. My family thinks that February 22 is a good day to celebrate George's birthday.

Update: Lake Weston has reformed, but the river seems to have peaked. There is a benefit to the cold week ahead--the thaw is put on hold so the flooding will not inconvenience us much if at all. As the river recedes and the temperatures at night falls into the teens, we should get some interesting ice formations.

A comment left below that says that the river gauge is showing levels about four feet below where they should be sounds right. This amount of water looks like a river height of about 12.5 feet.