Mountain Mansion in the Rain
I dreamed I was in a mansion with three or four other couples. It was raining outside when everyone decided they'd better head home before the roads flooded. I offered to put them up if they wanted to stay, but there were no takers. We went out into the sprinkles and they drove through the tunnel under the main road to get to the on ramp. I climbed up the steep hillside so I could wave to them as they went by on the entrance to the main road. By the time I got to the top of the hill it was raining hard. The roadway had become a canal. The first car load stopped at the top of the drive where it started to dip back down to join the road.
The driver rolled down the window and asked if I'd still be willing to put them up.
"Sure, meet you back at the house."
"Do you want a ride?"
"No, the water's all ready running too fast." I turned and started back down. The water off of the main road was shooting out one of the drains that led it past the house and down into the valley that was essentially my back yard. I noticed that there wasn't as much water draining off the road as I'd seen in the past, so I began to become concerned about breaks in my drainage system. The drivers reached the house before I did, as I was being careful climbing down the now wet rocks.
"Can we help you down?"
"No, let me open the garage, I'll meet you around the side of the house." I gestured to the left side of the house where there was a covered porch off of the garage.
I made my way down, noticing water leaking between some of the larger rocks that made up my retaining wall. I followed the sound of water running under ground and discovered that the extra water was running through some old drains, ones that I hadn't removed when I created the new ones. I was glad I'd left the old system in place, it was working well, and there was a huge waterfall coming out of the hillside about twenty feet down slope off the end of the garage porch. Two of the couples met me on the porch.
They all expressed concern at my being drenched, but I told them the hot tub was waiting and I would be fine. (My clothing was wool, so I wasn't really cold, and the rain was actually somewhat warm, it being summer.) I pointed out that the other couple had made it through the torrent of water on the flat part of the road and we could see them making progress down the hillside. They were in a large Hummer like vehicle, so I wasn't surprised that they'd chosen to fjord the stream. My current guests were all stuffed into a small sporty BMW that rode closer to the ground than my electric car. I'm sure they would have been swept off the road and floated over the hillside down my makeshift drainage stream.
"Doesn't your tunnel flood?"
"No, if you look closely, you can see that it has drains on either side, and it slopes down away from the house. The water goes into a basin on the other side of the ramp. That basin is what feeds the waterfall down there." I pointed to the new waterfall at the end of the porch.
"Cool, but aren't you worried about your house washing away?"
"It's been here almost 200 years, I don't think it's going anywhere. The original engineers were geniuses."
We went back inside as the air was beginning to turn cold and my kilt was starting to feel a bit drafty. I wanted to take my guests down to the basement where they could actually hear the water rushing through the rocks on its way to the falls. The basement also had a bay window that overlooked the valley, and it was just about eye level with the top of the waterfall, so the view in a heavy rain like this was pretty spectacular.
"How much food do you have stored here?" asked one of my guests.
"Enough to get through about 6 months, maybe only two if all of us are trapped here."
"Is that likely?"
"Not in summer, If I have to I can get a helicopter to come and fly you and your car out. About four days is the longest the road has been blocked. This storm will blow over by tomorrow and you'll be able to leave by evening. Though you should drive up to the top of the hill first, the view of the valleys is really something after a warm rain like this."
I awoke just as we were all stripping to climb into the hot tub before dinner.
The driver rolled down the window and asked if I'd still be willing to put them up.
"Sure, meet you back at the house."
"Do you want a ride?"
"No, the water's all ready running too fast." I turned and started back down. The water off of the main road was shooting out one of the drains that led it past the house and down into the valley that was essentially my back yard. I noticed that there wasn't as much water draining off the road as I'd seen in the past, so I began to become concerned about breaks in my drainage system. The drivers reached the house before I did, as I was being careful climbing down the now wet rocks.
"Can we help you down?"
"No, let me open the garage, I'll meet you around the side of the house." I gestured to the left side of the house where there was a covered porch off of the garage.
I made my way down, noticing water leaking between some of the larger rocks that made up my retaining wall. I followed the sound of water running under ground and discovered that the extra water was running through some old drains, ones that I hadn't removed when I created the new ones. I was glad I'd left the old system in place, it was working well, and there was a huge waterfall coming out of the hillside about twenty feet down slope off the end of the garage porch. Two of the couples met me on the porch.
They all expressed concern at my being drenched, but I told them the hot tub was waiting and I would be fine. (My clothing was wool, so I wasn't really cold, and the rain was actually somewhat warm, it being summer.) I pointed out that the other couple had made it through the torrent of water on the flat part of the road and we could see them making progress down the hillside. They were in a large Hummer like vehicle, so I wasn't surprised that they'd chosen to fjord the stream. My current guests were all stuffed into a small sporty BMW that rode closer to the ground than my electric car. I'm sure they would have been swept off the road and floated over the hillside down my makeshift drainage stream.
"Doesn't your tunnel flood?"
"No, if you look closely, you can see that it has drains on either side, and it slopes down away from the house. The water goes into a basin on the other side of the ramp. That basin is what feeds the waterfall down there." I pointed to the new waterfall at the end of the porch.
"Cool, but aren't you worried about your house washing away?"
"It's been here almost 200 years, I don't think it's going anywhere. The original engineers were geniuses."
We went back inside as the air was beginning to turn cold and my kilt was starting to feel a bit drafty. I wanted to take my guests down to the basement where they could actually hear the water rushing through the rocks on its way to the falls. The basement also had a bay window that overlooked the valley, and it was just about eye level with the top of the waterfall, so the view in a heavy rain like this was pretty spectacular.
"How much food do you have stored here?" asked one of my guests.
"Enough to get through about 6 months, maybe only two if all of us are trapped here."
"Is that likely?"
"Not in summer, If I have to I can get a helicopter to come and fly you and your car out. About four days is the longest the road has been blocked. This storm will blow over by tomorrow and you'll be able to leave by evening. Though you should drive up to the top of the hill first, the view of the valleys is really something after a warm rain like this."
I awoke just as we were all stripping to climb into the hot tub before dinner.
posted by Fermius Firefly | 7:07 PM
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