STILL HERE

It turns out that about about 15 miles from here, on the main road down the river canyon and out of here, a drunken idiot tried to run someone off the narrow road and ended up going off it himself, down into the canyon, crashing into the huge boulders, where his car smashed and exploded and he died in the fire.

The fire this jerk started is now over 53,000 acres and is the one that had me and this whole community ordered to evacuate. The fire already burned out another smaller village entirely, that’s about 10 miles away from where I am.

I finally said to Hell with it and came home after several days of forced evacuation, the fire seems to be blocked in my direction, for now anyway, and I need a break from trying to sleep in a crappy, noisy motel. It’s the only motel within miles and I have to say, it sure isn’t much.

So if things go from better to bad again, I post it when I’m able. Otherwise, the sky around here is blue even if it stinks of burnt wood because the winds have pushed all the smoke to somewhere else. A few hours ago it was so thick you couldn’t see the nearby hills. Not good stuff to breathe in.

Next day, late evening. Looks like the fire near here is out, but it still rages on to the south and east. A few others in the community have come back to their homes, and there will probably be a flood of them tomorrow.

Now the job begins of unpacking all the boxes that I had taken with me, and getting the rest that I left at a friend’s place out of the fire zone, and bringing them home.

So goes life in the brush country. This isn’t as bad as it is in No. California right now, with an immense fire burning through the forests there, and an even bigger one eating up the state of Oregon.

Life is always uncertain.