The Long and Winding Road....

After sitting on the porch with coffee and the newspaper for awhile, we got Spike out for his walk early, as it was promising to be hot later on. 
Later on, when it was hot we decided that we would drive up Los Alamos Road to check out the work on the road. 

Today's pictures show not only how narrow and winding it is at the top (just 2 or 3 miles above our house) but both the damage and the recovery from the Glass fire. The really green growth is California Bay Laurels which are native to California hills. The burned trees at the top of the ridge are various conifers which aren't showing any signs of regrowth or recovery

The first extra shows why we chose to drive up on a Sunday and not on a weekday when the chances of meeting a truck or a road crew are much increased.  The sign by our house says 'Expect Long Delays'. Clearly they have repaved this road all the way to the top which really needed it. It was not only narrow and winding but in really bad shape. The logging trucks that came down earlier in the year must have pretty well destroyed what was left of it. I have new respect for the road workers and a better understanding of a) why they have parked their equipment above our house and b) why it i(the equipment) is relatively small as road paving equipment goes....

The second extra compares the picture I took today with one taken from more or less the same spot in September 2015.

We've been up a couple of times since the fire, and today found it almost more depressing than before. A few houses survived and stand among the burned sticks. A few others are being rebuilt on what is almost a moonscape with absolutely no shade. Several of the properties up there were cattle ranches, but we didn't see any grazing cattle or ranch houses being rebuilt. A few other places  looked before like the occupants were barely scraping by. Now they are gone and I wonder what has become of the people who lived there. The big high transmission power pylons stood out in high relief against the dry grass and bare trees. 
 
We have a pretty clear view up the canyon from our house to this spot, but it doesn't completely convey the lasting devastation and the lives and livelihoods destroyed.