Tomorrow is the big anniversary of the flood and once it's over, I hope we all feel better. I've had this superstitious sense that if we can get past September 13 without another devastating flood, then somehow we are safe for a long time to come.

Good news today. There is a big watershed conference coming up in October and the registration is $225 plus the $119 a night hotel room for three nights. Last night I realized the registration was going up $40 on Monday so I needed to get signed up and get it in the mail today so it'd get there in time ($5 discount for paying with a check instead of credit card).

I had the check ready to mail, and this morning before I drove it to the post office, here came an email that I'd qualified for a scholarship to waive the registration, just have to do some helpful activities before or during the conference. Well, good. And I got to pick what I wanted to do: help the vendors find their tables.

The room is at the Westin Hotel near fabulous Vail, Colorado, and has a kitchenette, king size bed, and sleeper sofa. It will be nice to get away for a little break and spend time in a part of the state we usually drive through at 75 mph.

If it wasn't for this, I'd be sitting here feeling sad about nothing in particular except we have so much ahead of us to get the river back to where we can sleep at night for years to come knowing it can withstand a few days of rain or a big snowmelt runoff season.

Well, I can certainly count my blessings because so many people are worse off than I am.

I don't know whether to post a bad picture showing what it looked like a year ago, or what it looks like today, so here's one of each.

That's my bridge under that giant wave. The blue cooler ended up about a mile downstream, and was there on the side of the river until April or so when the debris people picked it up.



The river and the fishing are as good as ever; downstream a few miles the plants and fish are all wiped out. What the flood didn't destroy, the highway/river bank repairs did the rest.