FIRE, FIRE, MY PANTS ARE ALMOST ON FIRE!

This morning, when I got up I smelled the smoke the most I've smelled it in the past week.  It's frightening.  Although we haven't heard any news about being evacuated, I wonder, at the rate and with all the new fires that have sprung up after all of the lightening strikes the other day, I wonder how long it will take?

On the weather and news channels yesterday, they showed a map of the western United States and a flame at each location of a fire.  The western states were almost completely covered.  I don't know where I would go if we had to evacuate. Maybe at my girlfriends in Carmel.  I know there would be evacuation centers, but who knows for how long I'd have to stay there and if I could bring my cat.

I have thought about the moment when we're told to evacuate.  I would grab my cat and his carrier, his food and a couple of his bowls, my purse, my computer, small valuables, maybe some clothes and that would probably be it.  I kept my mattress from my last camping trip in the car and maybe I'd take my contour bed pillow and sleeping bag.  I believe my belongings in storage down the freeway towards Sacramento would be OK, but who knows?  This is crazy.

I don't want to scare myself too early because that in itself is crazy.  What will be, will be and this too shall pass.

It sure is a nasty sight from what I've seen on TV with all those brave firefighters trying to do as much as they can.  They are spread so thin that more are needed and not enough progress is being done.  We are in a state of emergency.

And what about all of the wildlife loosing their lives and habitat?  Already stories of dogs being displaced and brought to other states on the east coast because the animal shelters are filled here in the west.

All we can do is hope, pray and wait.  Watch TV for the news.

Yosemite is what scares and saddens me the most, seeing those roads we traveled so many times when I lived so close to it, to go hiking in the park, go up in flames.

These beautiful western United States going up in flames.  It saddens me so much.