Friday, October 16, 2015

ON THE ROAD TO GLENCOE.

DSC06786 (Copy)Note: Before I continue my pictorial journey through the fire zone with Jan,  Jim arrived yesterday at my house. We hadn't seen each other in over a year.   As Jan and I headed for Glencoe,  work crews were clearing dead trees too close to the road.
DSC06823 (Copy)And, then the irony of the sign, proving defensible space really works. I guess we all know that.
DSC06792 (Copy)We stopped at this completely burned house close to the side of the road.
DSC06802 (Copy)The house is rubble and there stands a green tree in contrast to the heat that must have been generated by this burn. Mind boggling.
DSC06794 (Copy)It was upsetting. It reminded me so much of what we kids faced when our school bus driver let us off at the burned remains of our house in Michigan in the spring of 1948. We didn't know if our parents and younger brothers were alive or dead.
DSC06835 (Copy)The vineyard survived and I wondered if this was my friend Malvini's place? I haven't driven this road in several five years. Almost every house on the side of the road to Glencoe, was obliterated.
DSC06840 (Copy)This family is living out of their pick-up surrounded by the depressing rubble of their once beautiful home.
DSC06754 (Copy)How do you move on when all your neighbors are in the same bad way; still in shock, struggling to come to terms with the sudden loss of everything they built, that sheltered them and provided everyday comforts of life?
DSC06821 (Copy)At the top of the ridge, I peered down the canyon at the devastation.  Places where every tree is missing, the ground bared.
DSC06787 (Copy)Then, you come across a place where half an oak is burned, the other half green. The top and bottom of a pine is burned but the middle is green.
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As we neared town, bright splotches of green began to show
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The town expressed their gratitude.
DSC06827 (Copy)At my son's place, I climbed the fence and walked the hill. He ran out of money when the economy collapsed and was unable to complete his house. The workshop was intact, but a neighbor stopped me and told me he had been burglarized along with his closest neighbor on the same driveway.  He is meeting with his insurance rep today.
DSC06849 (Copy)As we left Glencoe, the tree crews were still hard at work in a steeper part of the canyon.
2015-10-14-A day of Diversion
To view all the pictures I too of the fire, click on the link above.

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