LA's Burning...Again

As I'm sure you've read by now, the LA area has more fires. Lots more. When I got my paper this morning the ground was covered with a film of ash and the air smelled like cigarettes. The sun's now filtered orange through a thick sky.

What makes these fires worse than the ones last month is that they are in populated areas, as opposed to remote canyons. They've been burning everything from over-the-top expensive houses south of Santa Barbara, to middle class housing tracks in Orange County to mobile home parks in north LA. It's bad.

Fortunately, the winds have died down so the firefighters should have the chanced to get a handle on them today. But, it's still going to be hot and windy. They've got a battle on their hands.

With this as a backdrop, the wife and went to the dinner at Spago last night. We rode with my parents, so we were able to chat with them about their 50th anniversary, which is next August and do some planning for it.

At the party, we saw some of my dad's cousins from Philly (very east coast snobby). When I worked for my uncle one summer, I used to stay at one of the cousins' house on some weekends (he had daughters about my age), so it was great to see him and his second wife (the first died several years ago).

The food was great. We had crab cakes (even my wife had some--only the 3rd time I've seen seafood cross her lips), tuna tartar and fancy pizza as appetizers (with some scotch from the open bar). I had butternut squash soup and bass in an awesome sauce. She had a layered beet/cheese and short ribs on polenta. I was sad when I had to poop this morning.

Walking in a Fall Wonderland

Woke up this morning and the weather was nice. It had rained last night. Still some clouds around, but we decided to risk it. I am so glad we did.

We decided to hike to Cathedral Lakes. It snowed almost the whole time (I'll post pics when I get home and have high speed access). That sounds worse that it was. It was a warm snow in that it was in the 40s, so I never felt cold. Also, until the end, the flakes weren't big, so they bounced right off and we didn't get wet. It was strange in that when the sun was out, or the sky was brightest, it was snowing the hardest.

We didn't encounter that many other hikers so things were very peaceful. The folks we did run into were very friendly--one guy was even giving me some shit about the Raiders (I was wearing a Raiders hat). The hike moved around Cathedral Peak. With the changing angles and cloud conditions, we got a lot of interesting looks at it. The lake itself was very cool. We saw fog rolling in and there are views of many domes and peaks from the lake. We climbed some rocks on the southwest side and were able to look down on Tenaya Lake.

Just got done watching Penn St. lose to Michigan (booo) and Michigan State thump on Notre Dame (boo-hoo....NOT). Michigan State reminds me of an old gf (who went there as an undergrad) and a funny MSU-Michigan story...but that's for another post about her. There are two restaurants in the town where we are staying. We had breakfast at one, so we'll try the other for dinner and the SC-Washington State game.

Ah, Nature

All travels went well and now I'm in a tiny town just east of Yosemite. This being California means that a) there's high speed wireless in the room and b) the tiny market has upscale wines and 12 year old scotch.

It rained a bit on our way here (I met my uncle in Reno and drove here) and it clearly rained in the town earlier in the evening. We'll just see if the weather holds tomorrow. If not, at least there's a bar nearby.