Sunday, June 22, 2008

Vacation, interrrupted

So we made it to Big Sur fine. The trip was going along swimmingly. Joe and I stopped by the side of the road and watched a spectacular lightning show over the ocean, then got in our car and drove the last thirty minutes to the campground.Then later in the evening this fun family joined us for a fun night and day relaxing by the river. Little did we know that the lightning show we saw the day before had ingited a fire just three miles from our campground. We were sitting with our chairs in the river having a good old time when a Ranger came by to tell us they were haveing a "voluntary evacuation" due to the proximity of the fire and we might want to think about leaving. Did we leave? Nah. The danger wasn't imminent at that point so we stayed through the afternoon. Stacey and family had to head back home, so me, Joe, Lisa and the kids headed to another part of the river to hang for the rest of the day. We were there about twenty minutes when another Ranger came by and asked us if we had packed our stuff yet. We said No, we were planning on staying(along with about twenty or so other families), as we had been told the fire was still pretty far away. She said the situation had worsened and that although we could stay, there was a possibility that a mandatory evacutaion would occur later and at that point we would be given only 15 minutes notice before we had to get out. That means we would have to leave all of our camping gear there. Uhhhh...did you see the picture of our car in the last post? That's a lot of stuff to leave. So we packed it up and we're at a hotel in Monterey with Lisa and the kids. So much for our vacation! And now Highway 1 is closed going South, as is the campground we were supposed to be staying at the last half of our trip. So we don't know what we are going to do. Lisa has to go home tomorrow. The campground we were at said we could go back there if the situation had improved, but we won't know anything until tomorrow and honestly, on our way out we saw the fire and it was very close to where we were(two miles!) and very scary looking. I'm not sure I want to go back(unless the fire is out). So we're feeling kind of displaced right now, and pretty disappointed that our vacation has taken this turn. I pray they get the fire under control enough for us to go back, but if they don't we will either head to Lisa and Scott's for a couple of days and come home early or just start home in the morning. And then we won't get to meet up with this cool chick either(sob!). I guess we won't know for sure until the morning. Send happy thoughts!

4 comments:

Kayce said...

Oh Michelle!!! I am praying sooo hard for this thing to get under control fast! Last I heard they had it 50% contained. My parents were to head down to Phiffer on Tuesday for the week, but they just called to tell me they canceled. ARGH!!! I. AM. SO. SICK. OF. FIRES!

We are still planning on going down on Friday....I said I was praying right? I'll email you....

Kayce said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
M3 said...

Yikes! Sending good thoughts. We had lots of thunder up Fri or Sat (can't remember which day it was) -- it was crazy.

Kayce said...

Hey there...I sent you an email I hope you got it. Let me know.