The Field Room · Card 02 · The Seventh Room

The Rain Address

From The What, Where & Why of Everywhere. Water is not choosing its path. Water is following the shape of the ground.

That means the ground under your house is tilted, and the rain that lands on your roof is going somewhere. It joins a gutter. The gutter joins a drain. The drain joins a creek. The creek joins a river. And the river reaches the sea. Every drop that falls on your roof ends up in one particular ocean. That ocean is your rain address. Hardly anybody knows theirs.

THE RULES, WHICH ARE NOT SUGGESTIONS.

Never follow water. Never walk along a creek, a ditch, a culvert or a storm drain to see where it goes. Never go outside in a storm or when water is rising. Moving water is far stronger than it looks.

You look once, from somewhere safe, at water on your own path — and everything after that happens indoors, on a map, with a grown-up beside you.

The water is not the adventure. The map is the adventure.

The five steps

  1. After the rain stops, stand somewhere safe — your own doorway, path or driveway — and watch which way the water runs. That way is downhill. You just found which way your ground tilts, by looking.
  2. Go inside. With an adult and a map, find the closest creek or river to your home.
  3. Follow that river on the map. Sooner or later it joins a bigger one. Follow that one too.
  4. Keep going until you reach the sea. Write down the name of the ocean. That is your rain address.
  5. Now do it for two more places — a grandparent's home, your school, somewhere you have visited.
Place 1 of 3

Your serial

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Free forever from a 501(c)(3) with nothing to sell you. No account, no email, no photographs — the record counts places, never people. Other challenges live in The Field Room. Six rooms taught you. This is the seventh.