Not much going on in my running world right now, other than Californian International Marathon in early December. Training for CIM has been tough since I do not feel recovered from Portland marathon. ON the non-running portion of my life, the last three weeks have been totally out of control with two major life events happening and almost colliding.
First off, my wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor, has undergone surgery and will start radiation and chemo soon. Yup, that was a BIG bomb that got dropped on us! She started having headaches, went to the doctor, meds, return visit for a cat scan and was sent directly to the hospital for a couple of nights. Surgery followed less than a week later. MJ, recovering from major surgery, does sleep more, but that is to be expected. More Dr. appointments to follow including a consult with UC –SF. After hearing the original news, my parents drove down from Oregon and stayed with us for a week before heading home to Wisconsin.
THEN early in the morning on November 18, I was awakened by the smell of smoke and strong winds shaking the house. Got up for a drink of water and the front room was a glow of orange. A look out the window revealed that the hills above the house were ablaze. Went down stairs and woke up dad and the two of us stood at the kitchen window and watched the fire slowly march down the hill.
The winds were driving the fire downhill in to town. Soon the fire was close to McCarrain Blvd, a large four lane road so I started getting out the garden hoses, shovels and started wetting down the deck and the bushes at the back of the house. The fire jumped McCarrain Blvd and once it got going good, raced down the canyon quite quickly. The fire passed by our house, from one fence line to the other in less than a minute. Our downhill neighbors have (had) dense scrubby pines at the edge of the yard. The pines went up in flames and I was concerned that the fire was going to get into a large Jeffery pine that is quite close to the house then onto our roof. About this time dad is yelling at me to leave to leave the house, so I dropped the hose and headed for the waiting cars that were running in the street. Sherriff were going door to door evacuating people and a wildfire crew pulled up in front of the house, I assume to put out our neighbors burning pines. We drove down the hill to Horseman’s Park to regroup. All the equipment in the unoccupied fire station was still there though I could see some people walking about inside getting stuff ready. Where were they two hours before when the fire was still up on the hill and away from the majority of the houses? We left there and headed down to the Walmart on south McCarrain. We waited in the parking lot for an hour or two then I gave a call to Sharron at about 4:30 and explained the situation. She said come on over so we caravanned to her house where she had coffee and some breakfast items out and waiting. We turned on the TV and watched as everything unfolded. We spent the majority of the day hanging out at Sharron’s house, watching the news and chatting. Nick, dad and myself made a run back over to the house to check on stuff and to pick up all my parents items, since they planned on leaving to go home on Friday anyway. While we were there, we put out multiple hotspots in neighbors yard.
Before the fire (above) After the fire Below)
An impressive picture of the fire I found on the internet. Our house would be near center, just below the flames.
In the end, the fire burned just short of 2 thousand acres and destroyed 29 homes. A drive-by of several homes indicated to my untrained eye that the reason that they were lost was because of a lack of defensible space around them or wood shingle roofs. Myself included, like to have trees near the house. Several of the burned houses had thick evergreens such as pines and/or junipers right up against or overhanging the structure. I will be doing some landscape cleanup to rid the house of some fuel ladders.
A dark picture, but all the open space in the foreground was burned
Right before MJ went into surgery, my car was hit. It was a low speed collision so it was not all that bad. A kid backed right into the passenger side door as I drove through a parking lot. It crushed in the door and broke the glass in the door. When the glass broke, it went everywhere in the car including all the way to the driver’s side floor. I saw him coming, but there was not enough time to get out of the way. The damage was to the door only so they replaced the door and everything is fine. Several people have told me that things come in threes, so I hope that I am done for a while.
Something to be said for a “simple routine and boring “ life when you have stuff like this going on.
We still have some great views off the deck!
