John -
Howdy from Winfield where it is raining hard at 6:30 local time on Saturday morning. From what we could see last night about 11 the Walnut Grove was completely flooded and the water was approaching the barns. They had all the doors open so the water could flow through. We're warm and dry at the rel's farm out in Wilmot.

We rolled in from Dallas around supper time yesterday. We've spent the last week and a half trying to reason with hurricane season. Family in Baton Rouge is still without electric, and we evacuated my 92 year old mom to my sister's home in Dallas. She was planning to return to Baton Rouge yesterday, but only managed to fly from Dallas to Dallas when to BR aerodrome closed because weather while she was in the air. Dallas is more-or-less in the path of Hurricane Ike so it should be an interesting few days there. I'm guessing that Houston is already a mess.

The first rain we saw yesterday was in Ark City while crossing the Arkansas River which looked to be a flood stage. We came into Winfield on Hwy 77, saw all the campers in the Walmart parking lot, and figured that something was going on. We met the relatives at Greenbush Merchantile and got the story. Drove past the fairgrounds before heading to the farm to unload after supper. They were still tractoring out a few caravans but it was mostly empty. The lower parts of the Walnut Grove were already flooded.

We unloaded, and then Michelle's cousin and I went off to search the refugee camps to see if we could find you. There was still some room, but conditions varied. The Walmart parking lot was dry , but no water or electric. The livestock barn is a sea of mud. The campgrounds on the Wilmont side of the lake are pretty muddy, and the roads on that side are a muddy disaster. I was glad we drove up in my Jeep instead of Michelle's van. Most of the caravans seem to have electric for the moment, don't know about water. The Winfield side of the lake is better, but still pretty muddy.

We ran into Bill and Deana on that side. They went to the Walmart parking lot earlier, then moved out to the lake to get electric and water. Folks out there got the margarita machine working and we got a pretty good jam session going before the rains came again.
Everyone seemed content to just wait and see what is going to happen about the festival. The locals seem to think the water will go down quickly when the rains stop and that there's a good chance that the festival will happen next weekend. Hope that's not just wishful thinking. We'll keep you posted if I can get messages out over this chancy, dialup connection.
- Phil