Monday, April 20, 2015 -- Ash Covered Patio

Southern California suffered the devastation of a terrible fire Saturday evening and Sunday. 

We arrived home today from the Central Coast after being gone the past 11 nights to find our backyard covered in ash and debris. This photo is quite ugly, but part of what I use my blip page for is to document the events of our lives. This is certainly one of them -- ugly or not.

We watched on Facebook Saturday evening as many of our friends here in SoCal posted about the fire and homes approximately one mile from our home being evacuated. 

Since Saturday evening our pool was black with ash. We're thankful that our pool maintenance man arrived this morning (not his usual day) to clean. He lives here in our town and he knew how very close our house was to the fire. His good intentions were very appreciated, but he exited here without realizing that he had left the water hose running full blast to fill the pool. Ugh! So when we arrived at 2:00 p.m. our pool was overflowing. That was very frightening because if we had been planning to be gone for several more days the loss of water, the cost of water, and the damage of that much water pouring from the pool (thankfully away from the house) across a bare flower garden could have been severe. 

So we are now back in SoCal after one of the fastest trips from the Central Coast -- made it in exactly 4 hours. Traffic was lighter than we've seen in months. Now it is time to get myself ready to finish a spring semester. 

Good night,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol