Do you smell smoke?

I drove the four girls off to Horse Camp this morning.

It always smells nicer in the car on the way THERE, than on the way BACK.

I stayed out there for a bit and took photos. And one of the ranch hands took a photo of ME with the four girls and the horses. I was all full of "Squee! Photos of ME with horses!" and suddenly I'm 10 years old again.

Anyways.

After a lot of running around and getting stuff done, and going here and there and having lunch with Toni (who is responsible for getting the girls this afternoon), I was driving home, and decided, on a lark, to take the freeway home instead of the 'scenic route'.

I kid you not, as I'm coming up the freeway, the big overhead sign suddenly flashes "HIGHWAY CLOSED. FIND ALTERNATE ROUTE".

And this would be the ONLY highway that goes to horse camp. The ONLY road that goes over to where the girls are is currently closed in not one, but TWO places. The closure closest to my house is due to a lovely FIRE!!!!! This fire is currently 5 acres and growing (and I didn't see it when I was coming back from camp? Jackie! I was talking to you when I drove RIGHT BY where the fire is. I guess those thing grow faster than I thought. Egads!) Right now? Inside my house? I can SMELL THE FIRE. And I could see the thick billowy black clouds when I took my exit off the freeway.



OK, it's not the ONLY road, but in order to take another route, you can go 15 miles south, and then take a VERY windy road (the Dramamine Detour) through the mountains, coming out 15 miles south of Horse Camp, and then you have to head north, where... ta DA! The OTHER CLOSURE is. This one is some big traffic accident that's closed the road in both directions. Apparently, there are a lot of cars trapped between the accident and the fire, and they can't go ANYWHERE.

There is a third route. This one involves heading up nearly all the way to San Francisco, and then going out to the coast, and coming down by Devil's Slide. I wonder if that route's open... It wasn't 2 summers ago, when the slide actually, like, SLID.

All I can say is I am VERY glad that today is NOT my day to drive the girls.

*does a little washing-my-hands-of-the-whole-affair dance*