Road Trip, vol. 11

January 18, 1933 The next morning it was raining so we stayed at home all morning and did some writing and tended to a few jobs that needed attention. That afternoon it seemed to clear up and stop raining so we went downtown to window shop and while we were there it started to rain very, very hard. We were on the opposite side of the street from the car and we had to wait a full hour before we could cross to it so high was the water running. It seems the drainage there must be insufficient and the water cannot run off fast enough. In places it was running onto the sidewalks and even into the store buildings. Several basements of stores were flooded and salvage trucks called out. In some street corners the water was flowing just as in a river. When we did get to the car the traffic was so nearly at a standstill it took us over an hous to get home. In many streets the cars were just jammed the whole width of the street, unable to go ahead and unable to go back. The people out there must have been unused to driving on wet streets because I am sure the traffic would not be tied up so badly here in any of our cities. Of course Los Angeles is three times as large as Minneapolis, and traffic there is about as heavy as state fair traffic in the cities.

We finally got back and had our supper and then we went downtown again to a theater. We took in a double feature, two regular shows with all the extras for a quarter. The movies were very good, too.