Ouch! Time for a Break 

So many people have sent good wishes after reading yesterday’s report of our flight from the Los Angeles fires that I feel I can’t leave the tale hanging midstream, so to speak.  Once we understood that the fire danger area in Southern California was concentrated in LA and surrounds, we realized that by driving 30 miles east we’d be in a normal winter for these parts (70F, blue skies, gentle breezes and the possibility of restoring a semblance of cordial family relationships.) Also less crowded lodgings. The party (ie the women in the party) promptly found and booked a B&B for a couple of nights. So we retraced the last section of the route that the Joad family took on their journey to California in Grapes of Wrath and here we are: just off the Route 66 they made notorious and within hearing distance of the plaintive cry of trains heading on their long frigid way across the plains to Chicago and points east. So, Vulcan, stick that anvil of yours where the sun don’t shine. We humans aren’t finished yet.