Just a brief update on the road and water level, based on our walk a few minutes ago. The road is definitely a whole lot better. Not great, by any means, but totally passable. Drivers need to go slowly or like, Evelyn Richer says, they could get seasick, but cars shouldn't hit bottom as long as you pick your way carefully and ride the ridges. It isn't mud, it's crushed rock, but there are ruts, so it pays to be careful and go slowly.

The top left picture is in front of Bill and Diane Rossi's; the one on the right is the road in front of Ken and Nancy Mason's where it was the worst yesterday. The picture above is just below our driveway - another bad spot yesterday, but ok now.

We tried to see if the water level is very high, and did get down to the water in front of Pecky Rouleau's. It didn't seem to us that the water is as high as could be expected with all the melting and rain, so that is good news. I'm waiting to hear from Evelyn Richer, who will have a better idea of the level since she monitors it at their house. Evelyn told me Ray connected the clock for the Ice-Out today - he waits until there are definite signs the ice is melting before actually starting the clock, which makes sense - no point in having it running when the ice is solid as granite. Now everything is in place and we'll begin monitoring the clock to be sure it's running ok and that the ropes are intact, etc.

On our way home, we saw this little deer up ahead of us. It came out right after a car had gone by and walked up the road in front of Encarnacion's watching the car and was completely unaware of us. Fred got several pictures before it went back into the woods just above Encarnacion's. We had seen lots of tracks in the road, so we know they are beginning to move around again.