holy smokes

san diego county is on fire, literally. i've never seen anything like this. the first we saw of it was sunday after a surf at pipes- greg, my dad, step mom (visiting from Chicago) and i left a clear and sunny cardiff and headed to the brigantine in del mar - no more than 10 miles from our house. on the way, visibility was greatly reduced, we smelled smoke and then drove right into it. the view from the brig was gone- all you could see was smoke. at the bar, we heard there was a fire in ramona causing the smoke. the santa ana winds, which make for horrible fire conditions, kept up all afternoon into the night. we woke up monday morning to strong winds, strange yellow light and the smell of smoke. ash covered all the window sills in our house and unfortunately, anything in front of them, including my epson 3200 printer (seems to be OK, thankfully!). after sweeping the ash and dust covering the back porch, i sat outside to have coffee with my dad and within 2 minutes there was a layer of ash floating in my drink. as the sun rose it looked like this:

greg went off to work around 8 and we watched the news on TV- 7 fires, 300,000 acres burned, 250,000 evacuated from their homes. greg called and said one side of palomar airport road was sunny blue skies and the other was pitch black smoke. he was sent home from work by 9. i went the studio in solana beach to cancel appointments for the day after my dad and demi headed to LA. as i pulled into my studio parking lot it looked like it was snowing ash. the smoke was blocking out the sun and it was super dark and eerie. the lines at the gas stations reminded me like september 11th and all of the street lights were out.

greg and i decided to leave home and head north, just in case. the news said not to wait for the reverse 911 call and to get out if we could. so we packed up the pets and our most important things, and left. here is what we saw:

san marcos is on fire

10:00am- we were pretty happy to leave that behind us

thankfully we have some friends in dana point, so after checking out san onofre and crystal cove in OC, we headed to their house where syd and charlie (dog and cat, respectively) could relax while greg, andrew and i surfed at doheny followed by a yummy dinner and hot tubbing. THANK YOU ANDREW AND ERIN!!! we had a good but short nights sleep and headed home at 630 am - so we could make it in time for work - and here are some views on the way home:

black smoke hanging over san diego county as we headed home

a fire on the side of the 5, between Camp Pendleton and Oceanside

yes, we actually drove into that

turns out neither greg or i could go to work (CMG was shut down, Solana Beach under mandatory evacuation) so here we are at home, taking care of business and hanging out. the sky is still yellow but we can breathe outside now. it will be awesome when this is all over. so far 515,000 people have been evacuated, at least 600 homes have been lost. we are keeping our fingers crossed for our fellow san diegans.