Over night, I devised a plan for Wednesday's activities. We worked out the details over breakfast and then put our plans into action today. We probably made fifty phone calls today, had a half dozen meetings, purchased the groceries, packed the cook bags, loaded the trucks and ate ice cream.
Tomorrow, we are cutting the hike short by staying in town and backpacking to Russell Joy Park for the afternoon and early evening. We will have shelter for preparing an evening meal and making lunches and there are bathrooms. The kids will have the opportunity to play lots of games. And we'll use up much of the food we have stockpiled.
We have to skip Thursday's hike entirely because of the horrible forecast. The NOAA meteorologist recommended that no one be outside hiking on Thursday because of the possibility of 2-3 more inches of rain and lightening. There were flash floods in Gowanda and Silver Creek today when they got about 3 inches of rain in a few hours. We can't take the risk of endangering novice hikers in unstable conditions.
On Friday, we will pack up and depart about 8:30 and bus the kids to the Ruttenbur Trail head. Hopefully, the remainder of the expedition will proceed as it normally does. They will have their own Dibble Hill experience, cheesecake contest and talent show. We do expect intermittent rain, but the thunderstorms should have passed.
When we consider that this has never happened in the previous 25 years, we were due! There have been plenty of rain or snow storms, sleet, hail, strong winds. They always passed quickly. This weather system is different in its intensity and duration.
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