Living in Arizona is more than desert and heat. During July it is more like desert, heat and rain and some awesome electrical storms. Otherwise known as Monsoon Season.

If you aren’t familiar with monsoons, they are basically a lot of rain dropped in a very short period of time. It has nowhere to go. Especially in a state with no drainage.

So the rain with nowhere to go, piles up in any dip it can. Underpasses become big swimming pools. Yet people try to drive through their cars and manage to get stuck. So it is common to see people floating while they sit on their roof. We even have a law here called the “Stupid Driver” law that basically says if they have to rescue you due to your stupidity trying to drive through moving water you are liable and can be charged.

The water beds go from dry playgrounds (yes, they build playgrounds in these empty riverbeds) to raging rivers in a matter of minutes.

I’ve mentioned before I live in the middle of no where. To make matters worse, I live off a mini mountain so our desert not only fills up with water, we get extra moving water from the run off. Due to the natural washes in the dirt, certain areas flood out and become running water which can be dangerous to cross. My house and those around me, basically have 4 ways out of the back area we are in. Problem is, all four have big dips that fill up with water. Fast moving water on top of that.

So when it rains, depending on which side you are on, you are either trapped at home or trapped in town.

Yet, living out here, we all try to we all think we can find away. We hope a friendly neighbor got out their tractor and moved the mud or rerouted the flow. Most of us having trucks, know we can get through most stuff, be even we can’t work miracles in the big ditches or fast-moving rivers. 

The picture above was one of the smaller running water areas. Yes. smaller. This is on a flat road with no dip. So you can imagine what the bigger ones look like. The road workers had blocked off another road and were directing traffic down this road. You could get through this one, but that yellow sports car in the picture got stuck at the next one. They tried to go around the raging water and got stuck in the mud. Turn out they were three 20 something guys who thought they knew more than those of us in trucks.

After taking a few other long treks to some other ways through, we finally found our way to the street that leads to our dirt road. Here are a few of those…

Before – when street was dry

Yea, nice little river now

As you can see, the street now is not only full of mud and debris, but you can’t see where the street is and the property on the sides. They have all blended into one. Needless to say, were weren’t getting down this river anytime soon. I was on the fence to try since my animals were stranded, but common sense took over. I knew the heat would eventually make it driveable by morning as long as there was no more rain. So off to a hotel we went.

Here are a few more angles…

Oh and here is one of the other dips we could have attempted… NOT  This one always has the most water running through it after the rains and more people get stuck at it.

Looks straight doesn’t it? That is an illusion. Under this water is a huge dip that is now maxed out and flowing hard. You can see that on the left side.

Needless to say, the next morning I was able to ride up the embankment of our mini river and with my 4 wheel drive and didn’t get stuck. It killed me as a tree scrapped against my truck hard. But we had to get to the dogs to make sure they were ok. All looked good at the house and they were excited to see us.

Later that night we went to get our other car which is smaller as we had to leave it town the night prior. If you want a good laugh, I video taped us getting both cars through. Click on this link to my Facebook to see it. —>>  Video of driving cars through mini river….   (sorry I haven’t upgraded to load video yet)

Oh and when you watch it, there will be a mailbox on the left side. Keep in mind, the water was all the way back there and the post was about a foot under water.

Thankfully we didn’t have any more rain (other than drizzle) and the water is going down slowly.

So, that was my weekend. Hope you had fun too!   😀

~~~till we laugh again~~~