Fire and Water

Another belated post...

We went to the Channel Islands recently, which you get to by a shuttle boat. Practically no civilization on the islands at all (that lighthouse is no longer in use). They call them America's Galapagos...



Here's a shot of the boat we took the first day:


We saw these:


Really, though, this was the highlight:



Don't worry -- those dolphins are not about to become oceangoing roadkill -- they're surfing!

Seriously.

Oh, right... then we came home to this:


That photo was taken from our front yard. While we were gone, they had evacuated our neighborhood. We actually missed the worst of the scare; what you see there is a controlled burn on the hill above us, intended to rob the fire of fuel so it couldn't spread to the houses.

So we came back and had to breathe smoky air for a few days, and brush the ash off everything outdoors. Inside, though, things were fine. And now it's mostly back to normal. Well, as normal as Southern California gets...

In other news, I'm back to school again, and settling in a little more quickly this time.

--Maddie