So heres how it went down from my point of view...

Friday night, I spent the night down in Carlsbad so that I could attend an early wedding for a good friend of mine. After the wedding, we went to the reception and had some food and a "few" glasses of champagne followed by a bloody mary, needless to say I was practically celebrating some unseen event as big as the wedding. None of this is too important however other than setting mood which we were in on Saturday morning, it was jovial...grooms, brides, the ocean, surfboards, friends, and champagne...we were all content at that given moment in life.

We left the reception a little early so we could head to long beach to look at some of the neighborhoods that we are considering renting apartments in, but first we wanted to take a nap. I called Crash to see if we could go to his house and play with his daughter (my god daughter) and maybe take a nap, but, he did not answer his phone and we called his parents in law, where my girlfriend and I live, to see how things were, as they were having the carpets replaced that weekend. Aurora answered the phone and says "Mike you're missing all the excitement and need to get here quick!" I was confused but I took the bait and asked what was so exciting and she proceeded to tell me about the evacuation in progress and the growing fire which was eating the hillside.

Sarah and I immediatley started to accelerate fearing the worst if we couldnt get back on the hill in time to grab our sentimental belongings. The whole way back you could see beyond the ridge of Anaheim Hills, the enormous plumes and blankets of smoke billowing up and settling into a sea of smoke carried towards the ocean on a wind front, for miles it was crazy. Finally as we rounded the mountain and could see our hill, it was frightening to litterally see the hill encapsuled in smoke and we were panicking at this point because everything she ownes is in the house and much of what I own is packed in my jeep, sitting in the driveway. When we reached the bottom, the police had already set up traffic control points to get people off the hill and we were still allowed up albeit against their judgement. When we parked in the driveway, the air was hot and thick with smoke, it was thick enough to make you gag and their was soot and ash snowing down. We ran inside and at that point had to make the important decisions of what can be replaced and what should we grab.

We ended up grabbing our computers and other little things of our childhoods such as pictures and trinkets that cant be bought again with any amount of money. So we grabbed our crap and got gone. Over to Crash's house, where we all sat and watched the news all day literally watching houses in the neighborhood burn and gradually it was growing closer to our house, slowly the coverage trickled away as the fires grew more violent and threatened other towns so we lost lots of coverage. The only way we knew the house was still there was to call and see if the answering machine would turn on. Finally after everyone just subtly fell aspleep from exhaustion and booze, we kinda drifted off one by one.

I will write the rest (part 2) about sunday later today.

Rock wrote:
FLEA wrote:
Munky wrote:
Wow that was a close call. Good to hear you guys are all ok. +1

+2

+3

anyways that was a close call damn 8 on your street that sucks but good to hear your all okay

Wow bro glad to hear you and yours are well.

Thanks everyone Will post up sunday soon I promise....its got human smuggling, defending against looters, and lookie lou's.

Yup...it was a major disaster in some places. Glad you're okay!