We are home at last. Like most people in our area, we are busy unpacking the vehicles we evacuated in (we stuffed a one-butt RV and a full size pickup as full as they could get, and left a stuffed SUV in the middle of our yard). Blogging will be light-to-nonexistant today after this post. I'm expecting to be rather tired tonight.
We drove back in at dusk last night. Once we got the official word that Lawson Valley was open, we packed as fast as we could (the cats were the main challenge!) and headed back. On the drive back, in the poor evening light, we didn't see very much of the damage. Driving through Spring Valley on Jamacha Avenue, we could see that San Miguel was burned over, and the places where the firefighters stopped the fire looked ominously close to town. As we turned right on state 94 in Rancho San Diego, we could see burns almost down to 94 as they came down San Miguel on our right. Then as we drove up Skyline Truck Trail out of the town of Jamul, the light was starting to fail, and we could just make out some burned spots off to our right, in the hills. Lyons Peak was too dim for me to actually see anything.
The best moment of the return trip came as we turned left from Skyline Truck Trail onto Lawson Valley Road. A fire truck, loaded with a tired-looking crew, was sitting at the stop sign waiting to come out of our valley. We opened our windows and yelled “THANK YOU!!!” at the top of our lungs – and were rewarded with big smiles and waves back. It felt so very good to be able to do that…
As we rolled into our driveway, of course we did a quick visual survey. There was not a thing out of place, not a single bit of damage. After all that drama and anxiety, everything looked so very normal, with the singular exception of our SUV and tractor parked in the middle of our yard, as far as possible from anything combustible. The house wasn't quite so normal, as we'd stripped a great deal out of the house when we evacuated – but of course we knew this, and expected the house to look odd. The main thing is that it was there, standing, and not a pile of ashes. We were very, very lucky here in Lawson Valley. It could have been much worse for us…
Last night we just unloaded the animals (who were very happy to be in their home again!), took a long, hot shower, and went to bed early. This morning we slept in until after daybreak, and then went to work. As I write this, around noon, we have most of the art back on the walls (which goes a long way to making the house look more normal), my slide rule collection is back indoors, and the computers are back in and running (allowing me to make this post). We're probably halfway through the unloading process. We're expecting to be quite tired tonight…
I thought I was the only person in Jamul with a slide rule collection.
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