Fire in the Park

As everyone around LA has heard (or smelled, or seen, or wiped the ash off of their car and discovered), Griffith Park is burning away. Makes me a little sad as it is such a fun place to go hiking right in the middle of the city. In fact one of my most rewarding hiking moments was making it to the Hollywood sign from the Observatory. I was determined to figure out the route on my own and it took me a few tries, but it ended up being a great day. All will regrow and nature will recover, but I sure wish I had taken the time to hike up there recently as my favorite trails won't be the same for a very long time.

I headed out to the LA River at Los Feliz after work to watch the water dropping CDF planes do their thing. It was an amazing show. I took a few pictures with my camera phone:


There was a small crowd hanging out. You can't really tell in the picture, but there was also a woman with her 2 horses watching the fire to see if it started heading back towards the equestrian areas of the park.


One of the CDF planes making a drop. That is a tremendous amount of water. I heard that it would do serious damage to a house if they missed their target.


Things started to get much worse as I decided to head home. Power was going out, people were starting to evacuate and I didn't want to be in the way.

It is a bad sign for the fire season this year if a homeless man falling asleep with a lit cigarette on a golf course can cause all of this.

You can check out all of the pictures I took on Flickr.

Life is short.

Well I am back from Nothern California. As some of you know, a Cousin from my Dad's side of the family has suffered a terrible loss. I won't go into it the details as it isn't my story to share...just remember not to waste a day. Life is too short.

I will share a few pictures from the weekend, though. I have discovered that Sea Ranch and the surrounding areas are truly some of the prettiest parts of the state. I never knew the beaches were that beautiful up there.





We were also lucky enough to be there to see the mother seals and their new pups on the beach. This one was my favorite:



I swear he was smiling.

Finally I spotted the most amazing area in the redwood forrest. I keep searching for some faeries or trolls in this shot:



I'm not feeling my usual sarcastic or flip self so pretty pictures is all you get today. Enjoy.

If you would like to see the rest, they are on Flickr