It may have been how Robert Grimstad was driving that caught people’s attention. He was all over the road.

Or the fact it was after midnight and the 38-year-old didn’t have headlights on.

Most likely, though, it was the fact he was riding a lawn mower down the highway.

When authorities caught up to Grimstad just before 1 a.m. Thursday near Madrid at the intersection of 300th Street and Iowa Highway 17, he told them he was out picking up cans.

Grimstad’s blood-alcohol concentration was .190, though authorities do not know what he was doing, or drinking, earlier.

Grimstad could not be reached for comment.

Boone County Sheriff Ron Fehr said he wasn’t sure how fast Grimstad was going on the six-speed Bolens lawn tractor.

“I don’t know,” Fehr said. “How fast can a lawn mower go?”

Maximum speed for a six-speed Bolens lawn tractor: about 5 mph.

It’s not the Madrid man’s first alcohol-related run-in with law officers.

He’s been charged with drunken driving twice, along with public intoxication and driving with a revoked license.

In Iowa, it’s illegal to drive any motor vehicle anywhere while intoxicated, Fehr said. Grimstad could have been charged while mowing his own lawn, the sheriff said.

Tags: blood alcohol concentration, County sheriff, drunk driving on lawn mower, grimstad, iowa highway, lawn tractor, madrid man, public intoxication

From the Shelbyville Times Gazette–A Shelbyville couple is being held under a combined bond of a half million dollars both charged with 50 counts of child endangerment after authorities discovered six children living in a home where methamphetamine was allegedly being made.

Read more at this incredibly great newspaper in the hometown of my sister who is the mother of David Gordon Reid Jr at the Shelbyville Times Gazette.com

Tags: cooking meth, County sheriff, David Gordon Reid, Department of Children's Service, drug raid, Jr., methamphetamine, mortimer, sandra jean, Shelbyville

I know its not Washington DC and we aren’t covered in snow, but its raining buckets out here in Los Angeles. The streets are flooded and the creeks are swelling to near capacity. In the last three hours it has rained more than four inches. In the up sloped areas, they have received more than five inches of rain in the last three hours.

Authorities say approximately six foothill homes in wildfire burn areas northeast of Los Angeles are under mandatory evacuation orders after a pounding winter storm triggered mudslides and caused widespread flooding.

County sheriff’s deputies are walking door to door Saturday to tell residents in the La Canada Flintridge area to get out after a debris flow up to four feet high damaged an unknown number of homes.

Residents have been rescued from houses and vehicles stuck in the mud. No injuries are reported.

Storm drains are overloaded and traffic jams are reported across Los Angeles County. In Long Beach, a section of the 710 Freeway was closed because of flooding.

The storm dumped about two inches of rain in downtown Los Angeles overnight.

Tags: broken, buckets, County sheriff, debris flow, Disaster_Accident, four, la canada flintridge, Los Angeles, los angeles county, mud slides, Natural Disaster, storm drains, Washington DC