Tag: California

Newport Beach

We’re back from a short trip down to Newport Beach – a little south of Los Angeles – to visit with some friends of Debbi’s who were visiting from the east coast.

Andrew is a college friend of Debbi’s, and he and his wife Mary had gotten a time share by the coast for spring break, but the plans of people they’d expected to spend it with had gotten upset, so they asked if we’d like to come down for a few days to hang out. So after dropping the doggo off at his “vacation resort” (a.k.a. his former foster family) on Tuesday, we flew down to Orange County on Wednesday. Our flight went smoothly and Andrew picked us up in his rented Tesla.

It was a pretty relaxed trip, with us spending a bunch of time around the room talking, and making a couple of trips to the pool and hot tub. Our main outing was to Crystal Cove State Park by shuttle. Although it was a little chilly that day, it’s a picturesque beach with a number of scenic coastal cottages. We had brunch at The Beachcomber, and boy was it yummy. The French toast looked a little too sweet for me, but the coconut macadamia pancakes were great. I guess I wouldn’t usually expect a lot from a restaurant in a state park, but this was definitely worth it. (Many of the other dishes we saw go by looked great, too.)

Okay, it was a pretty food-oriented trip. We had dinner one night at Foretti’s, a pretty good Italian place, and the other at Ruby’s Diner in Laguna Beach.

But mostly it was a chance for Debbi to catch up with Andrew and Mary. I hadn’t seen Andrew since we met up at the Franklin Institute when we visited Philadelphia in 2001 for my sister’s wedding. Debbi had seen him once since then, but she hadn’t seen Mary since before then. That’s a long time! Lots of things that have happened to all of us in that span.

The only downside for me is that I’ve been struggling with a muscle knot in my back which I think is impinging on a nerve, which has left me in moderate pain on and off for a week or so. It’s happened before so I expect it will go away, but it’s something I’ll bring up at my next doctor visit.

We flew back on Friday, landing at the end of a big rain storm, and forgetting where we’d parked (we only had to circle the parking garage floor once, at least). We had a quiet evening last night, had breakfast at the Pancake House this morning, and then picked up Domino. It sounds like he spent almost the whole time playing with our friends’ current foster puppy, which is great. And he was pooped and has been sleeping most of the day.

Even though we didn’t spend a lot of time sightseeing, it felt like a pretty packed trip. I guess when you spend nine hours traveling in three days – what with getting to and from the airport with perhaps more lead time than is necessary – it’s gonna feel that way.

But it was a good trip. Even if it’s a little weird to fly to Orange County and not go to Disneyland!

Crystal Cove cottages. The Beachcomber restaurant is behind the light blue house.
Crystal Cove beach

Well That Was a Week

The big news this week in our area were the eerie yellow and red skies due to the marine layer lofting the smoke from fires up north high into the atmosphere. (More here.) It was yellow and dark most of the day here in Mountain View, but further south and north the skies were red and much darker. But the air quality at ground level was actually fine, it just made for a from and foreboding rising every time one looked out the window.

The apparent end of the world was overshadowed for me because Jackson started showing signs of conjunctivitis again, meaning I guess the respiratory infection some of the cats had a month ago isn’t entirely gone. So we took him to the vet and got some meds. We couldn’t take him in until the end of the day, so I spent much of the day looking out at the dire heavens, and worrying about our boy. So we’re going him two meds for a week and then we’ll revisit. It remains to be seen whether the others will also need meds, although Edison started showing signs of eye trouble today. Sigh. I was really hoping a month after finishing the last round of meds that we were done with this.

(Despite the dramatic coloring, our weather was greatly overshadowed for the rest of the country by the disastrous wildfires in Oregon, which have been about as bad as anything I can recall in California.)

Unfortunately the marine layer moved out of the area by Friday, which meant the smoke came down to earth, and our air quality has been lousy for the last couple of days. Even worse up in San Francisco, I think. But we’ve basically been sitting inside, running the house fan and occasionally and A/C (the outside temperature did hit 80°F today, and the sun even came out). I don’t think anyone really knows, but the best prediction I’ve heard is that we won’t get relief (in the form of winds blowing the smoke elsewhere) until at least Monday.

Of course, the best thing would be for the fires to get put out. California firefighters have been doing a heroic job of containing the fires – the three large ones around the Bay Area are almost completely contained – but the whole west coast and several inland states have been set ablaze and things are bad.

Anyway, hopefully next week will be better. On top of the pandemic, this week was just nuts.

Smoke in the Valley

As has been widely reported, California is sorely beset by wildfires, with two of the largest in history ongoing right now. Southern California is contending with the Woolsey Fire, which for a while looked like it would be the better-known of the two as it encroached on populated areas outside of Los Angeles, evicting several celebrities from their homes, and even destroying some. That was until the Camp Fire, over an hour’s drive north fo the state capitol of Sacramento, became the deadliest fire in the history of California. Over 50 people have been reported dead, and hundreds are missing. Friends of people we know have lost their homes, and the whole town of Paradise has been effectively destroyed.

It’s ghastly, and it’s probably the new normal in California due to climate change reducing annual rainfall. Moreover, much of California is hilly or mountainous wilderness, making it difficult and expensive to manage the foliage which fuels these fires, as well as to fight the fires when they break out.

The Camp Fire erupted a week ago now, and the prevailing winds have blown a large amount of the smoke down here to the San Francisco Bay Area – over 200 miles away. Last Friday was the worst, with smoke clogging the air and everything smelling burned. Outdoor kids’ activities over the weekend – including the soccer games of our friends’ kids – were cancelled. We mostly stayed indoors. By Monday the smell had mostly abated, and the sky looked clearer, and there seemed to be hope that a change in the winds would clear things up later in the week.

It hasn’t happened: Today is nearly as bad as last Friday, and my nasal passage can feel the smoke even inside the house. I could get a filter, but I’d probably have to wear it all the time, and those filters are not really things you can sleep in. The hills – about ten miles away – are completely blocked out by the smoke. The sun is breaking through, but the sky is still quite hazy.

Imagine what it’s like for animals, especially ones whose owners have to put them outside during the day. The alternative is to, what, lock them in a small room for 8+ hours? And even then it might not help with the smoke all that much.

Meanwhile, fall weather has arrived with lows in the 30s overnight (but highs still around 70°F, thus I’m still wearing shorts during the day). But the temperature and the smoke don’t seem to affect each other at all – unless the smoke is blocking out enough sunlight to cool it down more than usual. I’m not sure. I haven’t gone running since last Wednesday, and I’ve been curtailing my outdoor walks after lunch, too. It’s bad. We’re starting to go stir crazy from being inside all the time.

The Camp Fire is still less than 50% contained, and even if it were fully contained it might keep burning for days or longer – containment just means it’s not growing any larger, but there’s still probably plenty of fuel inside the containment area to continue burning.

Our moronic President tweeted the following last weekend:

Donald Trump just doesn't get it, but what else is new?

So this awful environment is our new normal for probably the next week or more. The long-range forecast is predicting rain coming on Thanksgiving Day, and that would help a lot, but that’s also a full week away.

Climate change is already here for California. It’s coming for you too, whether in the form of heat, or winds, or storms, or food shortages. The Earth is going to be a very different place for humanity to live in a few decades. If we make it that long.