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I wrote the paragraph below last night about 10pm.  Now, at 8:30a the next morning things have changed!  I’m learning about the volatility of fire and winds.  The fire jumped the major highway between Santa Barbara where my friend lives last night and now there is a mandatory evacuation up to the street one over to the west of her – so like 5 houses away, and she is under a suggested evacuation order.  They got the reverse 911 call at 1am in the morning but she was nice enough not to wake us up since we didn’t have to evacuate yet.  And walking out of the trailer this morning I was surprised to see ash falling from the sky like a light snow.   Definitely a once in a lifetime experience for us from Texas but sad because lots of homes have been lost and the whole community affected.  Of course there are hundreds of firefighters working the fire but I guess with a fire this big most of the focus is on life saving first, property saving second (keeping the fire out of the downtown area) and the fire is primarily driven by the winds – called sundowner winds that sweep through the canyons in late afternoon/evenings on a regular basis.  So it’s only like 10% contained.  My friends where headed out of town for the Mothers Day weekend anyways so they’ll just leave early, with the added work of packing up valuables and sentimental items and moving them before they leave, and we were headed off anyways so we’ll have some breakfast and say our goodbyes.

Night before:

Sitting here watching the news on the Santa Barbara fire going on.  If I wanted I could just walk outside the trailer and watch the fires burning on the mountain sides with my own two eyes.  We’re in no danger but it’s scary how much the fire has spread in the two days we’ve been here – to watch it spread with my own two eyes.  They’re reporting a very aggravated black bear wandering down a canyon road above Santa Barbara, driven out of the hills by the fire K.

We’re having a wonderful visit with our friends Karen, Paul, Charlie and Olivia in Santa Barbara even with the fire.  Zoey is in heaven playing with Charlie and Olivia who are only 3 months older than her.  She’s been without a playmate for a couple weeks so it’s really nice for her to have some kids to play with.  And it’s been really nice to have friends to hang out with after two weeks on the road.

On Wednesday we headed out of Palm Springs in the morning and spent most of the drive time skirting the outskirts of Los Angeles as we headed to the coast.  We spent at least 4 hours on a 4/5 lane highway full of cars on a mid day during the week.  Amazing the number of people who live here!  And then we hit the coast and were sooo excited to see the ocean.  We felt we had arrived.  And that we’d done it.  We’d made it to the west coast.   We seemed to have brought the heat from Texas with us as it is unseasonably warm here so we spent the afternoon at the pool with the kiddos to escape the heat.  Can you believe that folks here don’t have air conditioning in their homes!  It felt like Texas on a hot summer day.  So the next morning we got up and went to the beach – East beach to be exact.  A beautiful, uncrowded, sandy beach with mountains in the background, mountains on fire.  Zoey had so much fun but the water was waaaayyy too cold to go in.  Joe went in twice, for about two minutes each time but the rest of us barely got our feet wet.  But on the beach there’s a wonderful cool breeze that keeps the heat at bay.



Then the kids did more swimming in the pool while Karen and I went and checked out Trader Joes.  Not what I expected but I liked it.  Small store, felt like a neighborhood store, with limited choices, mostly Trader Joe branded items, but lots of organic choices and everything you need at a reasonable price.  I’d be happy with one at Mueller.   Finished up the evening  standing out on the street with Karen and Paul’s neighbors watching as the fire continued to spread while the kids scootered around.  We’re going to be sad to leave tomorrow but are excited about the drive up the coast and visiting with my Aunt and Uncle in Monterey in a day or two.  Fun things are ahead!