Down by the river...

After weeks of chilly, rainy, yucky weather, people of southern Indiana were finally granted a reprieve yesterday. The weather was absolutely beautiful. Temperatures crept towards 70 degrees, refreshing breezes danced playfully in the wind, and there wasn't a cloud in the piercing blue sky. A perfect day, in my opinion. (And today was even better! Hooray!)

Hannah called me on her way home from school yesterday so we could formulate a plan for our evening. The original idea was to hit the gym, as per usual, but we both agreed that it was much too pretty to be indoors. The solution? An afternoon spent at Evansville's Riverfront Corridor, a walkway downtown that runs alongside the Ohio River, with Ryan and Kari.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones with this brilliant idea- the trails and sidewalks were way more packed than normal. However, the unusual overpopulation could be attributed to something other than the weather... like the flooding. All of the rain we've had these past few weeks resulted in flooding which led to not only that annoying boil water advisory (which was finally lifted on Wednesday!), but also a very flooded riverfront. The sidewalks and trails that we usually take to were several feet underwater, so everybody there was restricted to the one remaining sidewalk.

To give y'all a better picture of the amount of flooding we were faced with, here's what the riverfront looks like on a normal, non-flooded day:

(via)

And here's what we found upon arriving yesterday:

Crazy! But we still had a great time walking around, exploring, and taking pictures.

Walking along the very top step of the outdoor arena/seating area... The water was so high!

Lots of interesting-looking driftwood had washed up.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I really like this photo for some reason.

After exploring the edges of the flooding, we took to the main sidewalk. We walked for about 15 minutes with the river to our left and the streets of downtown E-ville to our right.

The sun was super bright, so Kari dug out a pair of sunglasses from her purse. She wore them for a good five minutes before Ryan noticed that one of the lenses was missing... Kari's reaction? "I was wondering why my vision was so weird!"

So proud...

We came across Casino Aztar after awhile...

Back behind the boat was a huge Dumpster... and behind that Dumpster was a mini junkyard piled with old, worn-down tables, chairs, and other random pieces of furniture thrown out from the casino and nearby bars. It looked pretty trashy, but there was some interesting stuff in that pile of junk.

Hannah spotted some table bases sticking out from the water that looked as if they had potential, so she ordered the fiancé to venture out into the nasty water and retrieve one. 

He may or may not have came close to falling in once... or twice...

The table bases were evidently made of pure cast iron, meaning they weighed a ton. But Ryan was able to retrieve one so we could get a better look.

It was actually really pretty! Hannah fell in love and was in the process of talking Ryan into getting the other one and bringing the car over to take them home when we heard someone yelling: "HEY! GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

Uh-oh. The Casino Aztar po-po had caught us. We obediently backed away from the mini junkyard, sans those lovely table bases. Hannah was pretty disappointed and took it out on Facebook:

After that, we turned around and headed the other way, back towards the car. The sun was starting to set over the water, which made for some beautiful pictures.

After snapping 4,234,957 photos of the sun setting over the water, I noticed the full moon to my left, which I thought was pretty cool.

We made it back to the car without any further run-ins with the police and were ready to head back to campus when Ryan spotted a cannon which, obviously, demanded his attention.

We finally lassoed him back in Hannah's Chevy Malibu and were off. Apparently I was still in picture-taking mode, because I started snapping random pictures of downtown Evansville like nobody's business.

(There's that moon again.)

Overall, I'd have to say yesterday was pretty fantastic. I don't work on Thursdays and my tutoring field experience is cancelled this week and next, so aside from one class at 9am, I was basically free for the day. I took a nap, relaxed in a bubble bath with a good book, and enjoyed a fruit smoothie from the C-store.

After walking down by the river, we got back to the apartment to find all of our friends out back playing corn hole and listening to music. I hung out with them for awhile and then came back up to the apartment to watch some Harry Potter- it's another HP weekend on ABC Family! :)

Kari, myself, and Hannah

How did you spend your St. Patrick's Day this year? Aside from wearing that green shirt, I did absolutely nothing related to the holiday, so I'm curious to see what kinds of festivities you all took part in!