Summit Fire

I thought I better address this fire since we've had lots of questions and concern from those a little familiar with the area but not really here. Last Thurs. I got a call at 7:30 am, from my friend RuthAnn, asking if we were okay. That's the first I knew we were fairly close to a wildfire in the Santa Cruz mountains. Tom, the son of a State of CA fire chief knew immediately that we should get anything irreplaceable out of here. We packed up his guitars, my jewelry, our pictures and important papers and took them to Aimee & Glen's apartment for safe keeping (along with a couple of suitcases of clothes. Since they are house sitting for Glen's parents they even offered us their bed. I was a little nervous about coming home that night since Tom was in Carmel at the opening night of Camelot (he's Sir Dinadan.) We could see tons of smoke at the ridge of the mountains but the wind was blowing SW so we couldn't even smell it. Looking at the satellite on the computer we watched the smoke blow all the way to San Diego but not towards our house. From our house we couldn't even see smoke since we are so close to the hill. This has been a huge battle for Cal Fire and all the mutual aid firefighters (3,000 +) and they have done a great job. The first two days the wind gusts were 40-50 miles per hour. That's what made things so difficult and caused the fire to get so out-of-control. They finally got it 20% contained on Friday night. As of 7 pm this evening it is 80% contained and they are planning for full containment by 6 pm tomorrow (Tues.) We have only smelled smoke this morning and yesterday morning a little bit. The wind has blown in our favor and we are grateful. We have had continual helicopters flying over our house carrying buckets of water. The wind changed to blow north on Friday and even Bob & Cath in El Cerrito could smell the smoke. San Jose got their share too. Morgan Hill was covered in a blanket of smoke all weekend. Gilroy just got real lucky. As soon as they announce total containment we will retrieve our stuff from Aimee & Glen's and bring it home. Thanks for all of your concern. We are okay and glad that 2 or 3 miles away can be plenty far enough with the right wind!

Maui - day 7

Hello again! We've actually been home for over two weeks. I guess I had more "free" time while on vacation. I'll share what I remember of our last day on Maui! We had to be out of our place by 11 am and our flight wasn't until 9 pm so we had the whole day to spend. We were packed and ready to go by 10:00. We stopped at a book store, since I'd finished my two books I took with me. Then we returned snorkel gear and went to downtown Lahaina. We found 3 hour parking and went shopping and wandering.
We spent some time at the Banyan Tree. If you've never seen a Banyon tree you should. The one in Lahaina will be 300 years old in July. It has a huge trunk and it sends out branches that get so long that they send down roots and the tree forms another trunk. This tree covers the whole "Plaza". We went back to move our car so we could take a trip on the Reefdancer. It's like a glass bottom boat so you can see all kinds of marine life. The problem was that by afternoon when we went the wind had stirred up the water so much that is was cloudy. They gave us a "rain check" that we can go back any time and take the trip again. It was still fun.
Then we drove to Kahalui where the airport is. We rushed to get to a Ukulele store that Tom was dying to see but they had just closed. He did buy a new Ukulele in Lahaina earlier and this was the guy that made it. Oh well, maybe next trip! We will have to go back to see this guy and to use our rain check on the Reefdancer. Our flight home was all night. We got to LAX at 4:45 am and had to wait until 7:30 to head to San Jose. The trip was just what we needed. We were able to relax and escape from life for a week. I'm ready to go again!