Fire

Wednesday I left my car's top down when I parked at work and when I left that night I noticed some white flakes on the seats and figured it was from the trees I parked next to. Then on the drive back there was a sign about the 118 being closed because of brush fire.

Thursday I was driving in to work and about 25 miles north-west of where I work I noticed that the sky had become a whitish-reddish color and that part of the ocean was reflecting this color. As I got closer it became clear that this was smoke rising from a giant fire a bit north-east of where I work. I went into work and didn't really think about it until 11:30 when someone came around telling everyone that we were going to be evacuated in an hour so if we wanted something from the cafeteria we should go now. (I still don't understand why getting food seemed to be the key message rather than the evacuating part, but maybe it is just that people who live around here are not surprised when they have to evacuate for a fire). Well due to recent events in the world and the fact that I had to drive north to get home as soon as I heard the word evacuate I walked to my car and started driving. Once I was well past the fire I stopped by some stores to do some needed shopping (it is a long drive - I go by a lot of stores). And each time when I went into the store the sky was blue and when I came out the sky was white and bits of ash were falling. Luckily by time I got about 15 miles south of Carpinteria the sky was nice and blue. Then I headed up to Santa Barbara to pick up my Grandma who was visiting my Aunt and Uncle. We headed back to Carp and walked around the town and got some dinner. At one point we got some candy and ice cream and sat down outside and I noticed that every once in a while I would see a bit of ash falling, but the sky stayed nice and blue.

Friday I called Teradyne to see if people were going back to work and they said the buildings would open at 12:00 but it was up to individual discretion if you wanted to come in. Well my individual discretion says 3.5 day weekend!