(WSBT) It's a sign you can see on one of our busiest roads. But do you know what it means?

In Wednesday’s Good Question, Kevin Merasco of Elkhart asked, "When driving on the Bypass, I always see a sign for the ‘North/South Continental Divide.’ What is it dividing?"

Cephus Phillips is like a lot of people right now — he's fighting a losing battle with his lawn.

“This is the first year I really tried to concentrate on working on my yard,” Phillips told WSBT News. “I fertilized it all, and then no water.”

When you water your yard, where that water winds up all depends on which side of the divide you fall.

For thirty years Ken Priebe has been working on planting ground cover over his entire yard.

“But it's been hell fighting it,” Priebe said.

Ken loves being outside. That love of nature combined with his study of climatology in college allowed him to make a discovery almost thirteen years ago.

“Well we walked that area just to make sure that we were on the exact right spot,” he said. How did he know it was exactly the right spot? “Contour of the land,” he explained.

Because of Ken's discovery, a sign now marks the continental divide along the Bypass in St. Joseph County.

Wikipedia defines a continental divide as a line of elevated terrain — water on one side of the line travels to one body of water, and water on the other side travels to another.

“But this is unique because it's a little south of where you would normally find it,” Priebe explained.

North of the divide, the St. Joseph River takes water into the Great Lakes and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.

South of the divide, the Kankakee River starts a long trip that ends at the Gulf of Mexico.

Cephus Phillips is watering north of the divide.

I can deal with Lake Michigan,” Phillips joked. “I used to swim there when I was younger!”