Northern California is burning

My mother keeps worrying that I am living in a place where the earth moves and burns. Until recently, I laughed her off. And then my first earthquake was not in California, but in Indiana. We had a 5.8 Richter Scale earthquake in Bloomington shortly before Jazz Fest. I woke up with the whole house shaking and the sounds of china at risk. Unsettling, but fine.

However, I have a new respect for natural disasters. Three weeks ago, Ned and I got caught in the Martinsville flood. We had just returned from a trip to Florida to see my parents, and we were trying to get from the airport in Indianapolis to Bloomington so we could pack for a camping trip and leave again the next morning. Martinsville is the halfway point and low ground. The White River had turned into a massive lake. As we drove through town, we saw water instead of fields, instead of parking lots, everywhere floating debris, and people parked on the side of the road talking anxiously on cell phones. And yet, the roads into town were open, so we figured we could get through.

We got as far as a police barricade of school busses blocking the ramp to 37, the road that would take us home. The police said there was no way into Bloomington; all the access roads were flooded and the water was still rising. They said the ramp might reopen in 4 hours, so we parked and waited. But the water kept rising, and then it broke across the road in front of us, and the police told us to get the hell out of there. So we turned around, only to find the water had broken across the road behind us. We forded a 6 inch river and made it out of town and back to Indy.

Unfortunately, our camping gear and Ned's girlfriend Amanda (who was supposed to come camping with us) were still in Bloomington. Thankfully, I had spent a lot of the ordeal on the phone to Mimi, who was also flying out the next day. Amanda packed up our stuff and Mimi put her up for the night and then heroically drove her to the airport the next day, taking a circuitous route of back roads that had reopened by morning.

But I figured that fire would be next. I did not encounter it directly on our camping trip in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. There was the evidence of the Park Service's past controlled burns, new sequoia seedlings, and scorched giant sequoias that had shed their seed, but no active burning. And I have not yet directly encountered it here in Marin, but there is a pall of smoke hanging over the county. We are surrounded by fire - 131 fires in Mendocino to the north, fires in Napa and Solano to the east, and fire in San Bruno to the south. The smell of smoke woke us up several nights ago. Now, the air is so bad your head hurts and throat burns.

In theory, we are planning to go camping over the July 4th weekend with Allison in Mendocino, and in theory, the fires are not in this part of the county. So what do you think are our odds?

Love, Lisa

PS. Sorry to miss Fest. Terry is hale and healthy. Ali says May is bad for a reunion in Bloomington. What are people's availability for the weekends in June?