Letters From Welch Station: Flood

9/26/10
A ONE HUNDRED YEAR FLOOD
         The distant soothing sounds from the treacherous flow of the main river channel filled my ears as my seemly silent footsteps touched the asphalt path near Welch Station.  It was still an isolated linear island of the popular Cannon River Bike Trail…… just a lonely empty strip of narrow black pavement laced at each end by a colossal ribbon of brown moving water.  Heavy fog filled this valley hiding any distant view of the source of the inconvenient event, but such are the circumstances of a “one hundred year” flood. 
Adding to this natural ensemble was the noise of dewdrops thumping the brush after the liquid morsels collected and then fell from the remaining mixed colored leaves of the encircling trees.  Looking to my right the skin of my face felt a hint of a crisp breeze that followed a bronze colored gravel road descending down the steep southern wall of this deep basin.  Through the encompassing mist, trapped just below the rim of the valley, I could see the early morning sun beginning its daily chore to part those hazy vapors.
         On this third day the receding water had dropped eighteen inches from its high point …. then, just under the red country mailbox at Welch Bike Station.  Now, I silently observed the rippled movement of the liquid’s surface still hiding the base of the mailbox’s wooden post.  I knew, and even dreaded, this was marking the near end of a thrill, the excitement of being isolated from the Wal-marts and the Targets of the real world. 
And the whole experience may have given me a just a hint reminiscent of Welch, an old farm community made of a few aged buildings wedged into the north bank of the Cannon River  Ravine , during its last “one hundred year” flood.
                                                 From Welch Station
                                                 Kent Kane