Book tour news, and more of the flood

Ava at Crown Publicity has confirmed a bunch of dates for my upcoming tour. The right sidebar lists my appearances in Portsmouth, NH; Los Angeles; Boulder and Vail, CO; San Francisco; Seattle; Portland; Dayton; Boston and elsewhere.

Kanani, Sex Scenes, Anti-Wife, Drama Mama and others . . . I told you I'd go West! Here I come.

And we're not done . . . there will be more dates added.

And I'm not done with flood photos either. It's pouring rain again, and the Corp of Engineers says the river will rise three more feet by Wednesday. My neighbor Rick Palmer, who's head of Civil Engineering at UMass, tells me this may be the wettest summer since they started keeping records, almost 150 years ago. That's the great thing about geek neighbors . . . they look up stuff like that and tell you, without even being asked.

That is why the world needs geeks. I'm proud to do my share.

Will the bridges hold? You look up at the sky and the trees, and they seem so strong and permanent, and the scene so idyllic . . .





But you put your face against the steel and you can feel it trembling from the force of the water. And you look down, where some are dangerously close to the limits . . .



So far, the force of the water is only hitting the abutment, the support in the middle. If the water rises a foot more, it will hit the bridge itself, and that will be the end . . .



For those who are curious about boating in these conditions, here's another view of those rapids yesterday:



That shot give a bit better sense of what it felt like, driving the boat down the stairs. You can see the edge in that shot. Here's a view of the same rapids, a bit farther up, from shore. This is where I turned around as things were just getting dicier.



The folks who manage the Turners Falls dam didn't expect this rain. They expected the usual low water, so they took apart some of the floodgates for repair.




The center gate is dismantled but they're OK for now with what they have . . . but the rain hasn't ended. This is the end of the line for boats, about 1,000 feet past where I spun around.

This last shot shows my Zodiac boat at rest. It's what's called a rigid hull inflatable. It's got a solid fiberglass center surrounded by air filled floatation tubes. Boats like this are extremely stable and virtually unsinkable. They excel in rough areas because the inflatable tubes bounce off objects and prevent damage. They are also very strong.