August 23, 2016
-
A (Mis)adventurous Santa Barbara Trip
Having had to postpone a trip to Santa Barbara when my 2011 Camry was totaled in July, I finally made the trip a month late. I was gone for the past 10 days for a nice R&R trip. There were three events that I would characterize as misadventures during this trip, and I will post in more detail about each of them in the next few days. I wanted to put up just a few comments this evening to give you a taste of what is to come!
One of the things I always enjoy when I go to Santa Barbara is a day trip over the mountains to Lake Cachuma, the lake that provides the city with its drinking water. Over the past few months, the lake level has been dwindling as the result of a 5-year drought, and it is perilously low at this time. I was shocked to see that I could identify the bed of the river that was dammed to create the lake!
This situation is very dire -- I will explain in a future post how bad it really is -- but it is being made worse by the fact that firefighters are having to use lake water to fight a major brushfire on the far side of the river, the Rey Fire, shown here after it had been burning for only 4 or 5 hours..
I don't have photos of the third misadventure --as we were looking for a parking spot so we could have some dinner, a Cadillac backed out of a space behind an SUV and hit my new car on the front passenger door. Nobody was hurt (except perhaps my pride), but the car will spend next week in the shop being repaired!
Comments (10)
Too bad about your new car.
I hope I haven't somehow become a target!!!
OH NO! OMG, Janet! Your beautiful new car! What's with these California drivers! I want to cry.
Yesterday we heard about the fire in SB area, and I was hoping you were far away from that. I knew you were probably visiting there.
The lake looks so pitiful. Can't wait to read all about everything.
The last "fender-bender" was a parking lot issue -- he was parked on the other side of a huge SUV, and neither of us could see the other as he crept (I think) out of the space and I went by looking for an empty space. Just one of those things! But because the car was brand new and he broke the paint, I think it's best to get it fixed NOW! It won't affect my insurance rates or my driver's record to do so, and I'll have a car that again looks new! The lake is in terrible shape -- and they are now having to use its water (and that of a smaller lake upstream -- muddy water in that lake) to put out fires! Today is the first time I've seen evidence that they are going to have to protect the city from fire -- until now, the winds were blowing mostly in the opposite direction. BUT -- this afternoon there was another that began near the oil spill from last fall -- on the sea side of the mountains and near where the Sherpa Fire was! Hopefully they got that one before it grew too big!
Oh my! I knew you had a ding in the new car but I hope it is all better now. The lake looks like a puddle - dire is an understatement! And there was a small mention of the fire in Santa Barbara in the newspaper. They said that it was only 5% contained. I hope it has improved since yesterday!
The car will be fixed next week. Because the door needs to be painted, it will take about 4 days to do, so I'll take it in on Monday, and get it back by weekend. The Rey fire in Santa Barbara has been over the mountains and burning away from town until today -- this evening they were protecting the top of the mountain, hoping that they can control it there before it decides to blow down towards town! Containment is now about 30%, but the acreage is still growing! How are you faring after that awful tornado? I hope you're nowhere near where it touched down!
Oh my! Hoping you can get out of that drought cycle. Not fun to need rain and not get it.
I hope so too, but our normal cycle is no rain until October or November at the earliest! I'm afraid they'll have to begin trucking water in soon!
So sorry about your new car! We don't experience fire like that here in the northeast, nor droughts although part of our state has been in somewhat of a drought state this summer ruining the corn crops near the finger lakes -- nothing compared to the western states! The car will be fine after next week -- it was just a blow to have it's first scratch/dent so early!
The two go together, although this is the worst drought I can remember. We've had several years recently in which there have been only one or two big fires -- this year is worse that usual!
Comments are closed.