It was nice and cool last night. I relished the cool sheets, snuggling into them and thinking my days to sleep comfortably were numbered.......the furnace temps are likely right around the corner here in SoCal. I got up very early, working in the dark, sipping my coffee....cool breeze blowing in my office window. A sudden blast of warmer air......sounds of the wind picking up......
"Sheesh.....Santa Ana winds......We'll be hearing about wild fires any day now", I think. Laurie leaves for an early shift at CoCo's and the rest of the house continues to slumber. Two hours later, the house line rings......Laurie's voice cuts across the wires sharply and with a touch of concern....."Are you guys evacuating yet!!??"
Wh- huh?
"Look outside Mom, I can see the flames from CoCo's......", she says.
Oh.
So I reassure her that they are faaaaaaar away and that indeed, I would not think of leaving the neighborhood without letting her know, etc., etc. Taking the camera outside, this is what I see:
So Michael and I pile in The Freighter and mosey out for a Sunday morning drive......we initially go way past the fire, thinking we'd get a nice vew looking back up into the canyon.....
Then Mr. B's FedEx skills kick in and he takes me to a neighborhood with a skinny, narrow single lane trail that runs under the huge power lines and hugs the edge of the aforementioned canyon. Steep, steep slopes and no guard rails and Santa Ana winds blowing like crazy and he's nonchalantly blathering on about how there's nothing to worry about and he drove his "high cube" in here last week to make a delivery with no problem.....(Apparently a "high cube" is even bigger than our van and I should be reassured.) Only I'm dissolving into a chicken and clutching the sissy bar and he parks in a tiny little turnaround, after blithely BACKING UP, to position The Freighter "just so", and yes, we had a great view.....
Of course, he admitted he almost blew over after he got back into the van after he snapped the pictures..... (Ya think?!)
Pooh-poohing my concerns, we lumbered back up the same teeensy trail in the same oversized van, and approached our neighborhood again......This time we hit pay dirt......we found one of the fires, up close and personal......at the top of the first hill behind our neighborhood.....
Oh well.....looks far less scary in the picture than it was in real life. Two helicopters scooping water from the resevoir I hike around, dumping it on the fire.....one regular fire plane dumping the flame retardant dust stuff all over the place.....
But really, there is likely no cause for concern.....we're just going to have itchy eyes, and the smell of smoke to contend with - the likelihood of it taking out the neighborhood is slim. There are groups of firetrucks at each entrance to the neighborhood and lined along the back streets overlooking the canyon. I can hear the water helicopter doing its thing.....
I will skip quilting class because there is the outside chance that if they start "evacuating" because they sometimes get overly cautious that way, they might not let folks back into the neighborhood.....so I will just hunker down with the dogz and work a bit.
Sadi could care less! She's got a bone.....Life is Good!
Update: Karen says the fire looks "angrier"......Right after I took this picture, we saw huge rapid piles of black smoke......ex-volunteer fireman Michael said "might be hitting some houses now....." Another group of sirens went by......We're going to go take a closer look....another post will follow....
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