From Spain to Sicamous

I had set this blog with paintings to post while I was away, but something did not work so I will keep posting the work I had set up. I will not have new painting work for awhile, but will continue posting my flower painting series!

This is a picture of Costa Brava in Spain. We were basking in warm weather, with a great group of people at a B & B trying to deal with the rapidly rising water in Sicamous, B.C. on Mara Lake as our cabin was starting to flood. We went from this view of Costa Brava Spain:

To this:

My husband Gord and I had finally gone on a long awaited celebratory holiday in Spain. The water levels were in the normal range for Sicamous so everything was a go. What we did not bank on was extreme rain and therefore Mara Lake rose to flooding levels in record time. Gord's Mom (Noreen) and Tom were here for a couple weeks of holiday time only to be stressed by the very quickly rising lake level. The normal procedure and protective aquadam was not put in quick enough or properly by the company hired to do this and Noreen and Tom suffered the stress of not being able to keep back the rising water.

We were up for 26 hours, arrived home in Calgary (from Barcelona) at 1 a.m., went straight to bed to wake up to the phone ringing at 5 a.m. to tell us the water had come in. We put our suitcases back in the car and headed to Sicamous. We were about 45 minutes away from Sicamous to find out the rain had created a mudslide and the highway was closed. We were rerouted, had to take 2 ferries and the normal 5 1/2 hour trip took 19 hours!

Thankfully we had the help of my brother Ken, his wife Marg, Carl, Leslie (Gord's sister), my sister Shannon and Jim to hold the water at bay awaiting our arrival.

We arrived completely exhausted to find the basement filling up with water and a work team had hooked up sump pumps, hoses, wet vacuums etc and were battling the water. The lake peaked 2 days ago and we are now seeing some of the lawn on the side of the house etc. We are so grateful to Noreen, Tom, Len, Gladys, Ken, Marg, Leslie, Carl, Shannon, Jim, Claire, Steve, Colleen, Brian, Jack, and Lynn and for their support and help!!!!

And today's view:

This is a picture of our yard from the road (under water). We are finally seeing some grass and side yard again. The big worry is boats going by and the wake moving our Aquadam. The weather is overcast today and all the boat launches in town are flooded so it should be okay.