Ostrich Races Anyone? Or Maybe Camel Races?

I’m sitting out a “no internet” break because of the weather, so I thought I’d share a few more pictures from the visit to Southern California..  While we were down there, the Riverside County Fair and Indio Date Festival opened.  My Aunt, Uncle, a cousin and her husband, my Mom and I decided to go check it out.  The palm trees that you see behind the magic lamp are date palms and are all that's left of a huge grove of date palms that used to be there.  The groves of date palms are "moving" out of the town of Indio into the desert surrounding the city. 
 

Of course, while there we just had to watch the races.  It’s been a tradition at the Date Festival for many years to have the ostrich and camel races.  I can remember watching them as a kid when the family went to the fair and I can also remember how funny the guys looked mounted on those big birds..  Well, I have to tell you.  The guys still looked funny on those big birds.  As you can see from the picture to the left, the race guys have a nice little flock of birds.  They also had a few emus in a pen in the back, but I couldn’t get into a good position to get a good picture of them.

Here’s a view of the ostriches and their riders getting ready to race.  If you look close, you can see 2 of the riders getting mounted on their birds.  The 3 guys at the gates are actually trying to keep the gates closed as the birds were bumping hard against the enclosures.


 

 And... They're off!

About halfway around the track, the ostrich that was carrying the fellow in the white shirt decided it didn't want to run for the finish line.  It stopped dead, nearly throwing the rider off.  Then it started to spin and that did throw the rider off..

It took the rider and two other guys to get the ostrich back under control and headed towards the finish line and the pens.

The ostrich race was followed by a zebra race...

 Then we watched another ostrich race, only this time the birds were pulling chariots.  The fellow in red won the race followed by the one in white that you can see just exiting the starting gate.  The fellow in blue brought up the rear.

Then the race people brought 6 young boys down out of the stands.  Volunteers.  The older boys got to "race" the emus.  No riding, they just chased the birds towards the finish line.  All 3 boys were grinning from ear to ear at the end...  

The 3 littlest boys got to "race" chickens.  They had a much shorter distance to chase the chickens overall, but their race took the longest because the chickens ran every which way and most of the time, not towards the finish line.

The final race was the camel race.  As you can see from the picture, the fellow in yellow had a bit of trouble controlling which direction his camel ran.

 And at the halfway point, the fellow in red was in the  lead with the one in green following in second place.

 And the fellow in yellow brought up the rear. LOL! 









After the races were over, we wandered the fairgrounds viewing the arts and crafts that were entered in the competitions and of course, we had to have a "date shake".  We bought some fresh dates to bring home with us, as well.  We all had a great time at the fair and were ready for some serious sitting down when we left.

And, I see now that I have internet again... Hurray!  One disadvantage to living in a small town that isn't terribly close to a larger city is the fact that we are limited in our choices for "entertainment".  We have no option of cable TV, we are limited to satellites.  We don't have fiber optic cables for our telephones, so we are unable to get DSL for our internet.   The choices for internet are pretty limited.  Dial-up, satellite or wireless broadband.  I tried the satellite route and was very dissatisfied with the service.  It was barely better than dial-up which I wasn't going back to.  So, wireless broadband it is.  Until the weather knocks out the power to the town.  Oh well.  We got our power back yesterday midday and internet came back this morning.  Yay!  Enjoy the pictures!

Still on the Road & Still Having Fun

2/18 ~ Lets see.  I’m in Riverside at my Aunt’s house.  My Aunt doesn’t have WiFi, so I fixed it.  Sort of.  I went to Walmart and bought a no-contract Broadband card and one of the cards for some time online.  At least I’ll be able to occasionally upload some blog posts while I’m here.  Now, where did I leave off in the last post? Oh yeah! In Palm Springs 2 days ago!

2/16 ~ Once the Holiday Inn moved us to a different room, we had a working WiFi connection and I was able to at least let the family know where we were and what we were up to.  Only I didn’t tell everyone what we had planned.   Mom and I had decided that we both wanted to take a ride on the Palm Springs Tram.   The weather report for the day was kind of iffy.  They were expecting rain in the valley and snow on top of the mountain.  It was still nice when we set out towards the Tram station, though.  This picture shows our view back at the base station shortly after beginning our trip.  The gondolas on the tram rotate as you ride up the cable, so your view constantly changes.  Having the gondolas rotate made it a pleasant ride up the mountain because there was no jockeying for position as people looked for things to take pictures of.  We all got to take pictures of the station at the bottom and we all got to take pictures of the cables, the towers and the mountains..   And the view of the valley below.  It was absolutely spectacular.  This picture of the valley was taken from the patio at the mountain station.  It was quite a bit colder at the top.  When we walked out onto that patio, I hit a patch of ice and skated for a few inches.  I moved over and followed Mom along the wall of the building where it was dry. 





3/16~ Wow.. It’s been a month since I wrote the beginning of this post. Sorry about that, folks!  Things got a bit hectic when we got back home and then I had my granddaughter come from Utah for a weeklong visit.  It was pretty busy while she was here.. Lots of activities and fun..  For now, I’m going to pass up posting pictures and stuff from the rest of the trip.  Just take my word for  it, Mom and I had a wonderful trip.  We saw lots of neat things, did a lot of fun things and had good visits with friends and family in Southern California. 
~
Now for a small “rant” aimed at a certain “anonymous” person who keeps posting comments that I will not allow to be published.  Stop.  Now.  I’m tired of reading your little rants/comments.  I will not publish them, nor will you miraculously change my opinion, so you might as well give up.

I do not hate anyone, Phil Spector included.  Keep up your garbage, and I might come close to “hating” you.  See, the thing is, “hate” is an emotion that you have to work at maintaining.  It's not a healthy emotion.  Plus, you also need to know the person you “hate”.  I don’t know Phil Spector, nor do I know his wife so I don't "hate" them.  Mr "Anonymous", I don’t even “hate” you for what you are doing.  But, today, you must be feeling very proud of yourself.  You managed to start a ruckus that got the Phil Spector Appeal thread closed for the night.  Wow.. What an accomplishment.  Hopefully no one got banned because of your “fun”.  Go ahead and keep posting links to my blog… I really don’t care.  The post you keep sending people to is almost 2 years old and has absolutely no relevance to what is going on today.  Ok.  /Rant off.

Still WiFi Challenged But Having Fun Anyway

2/15 ~ We’re in Palm Springs tonight and we’re still WiFi challenged.  I’m surprised too.  This time we’re in a Holiday Inn and the internet has just gone *poof*, “local only”.  If this stuff keeps happening, I’m going to start believing that I’m just not supposed to get “free WiFi” while on trips..

2/12 ~ We spent most of Saturday with a cousin of mine and his wife.  After we visited for a while, they took us down to Long Beach so we could sort of play “tourist” around the harbor where the Queen Mary is berthed.  The view from the parking area isn’t much, but it was neat to see.  Mom and I had been on the Queen Mary before, back when another cousin got married there, so we decided we’d be tourists everywhere but on the ship.  We checked out the Russian submarine that is right next to the Queen, and of course, we had to check out the stuff in the Russian gift shop.  There were a few events going on in and around the ship, so we checked out the “free” ones.  For instance there was a whole line of vintage bicycles that were pretty interesting to see.   We did a bit of people watching too as we wandered.  One of the events had something to do with clothing, and I can’t remember what the sign said and silly me, I didn’t take a picture of it, but some of the folks going into that part of the ship were unusually dressed to put it mildly.  You had to pay to get in there, so we decided to go across the bay and see what kind of mischief we could get into.  So we headed over to the free shuttle busses that take you across the harbor to Shoreline Village.  It was about time for lunch when we arrived at the village.   We ate at a very noisy restaurant there at Shoreline Village.  (And right now I’m really missing my internet connection because I can’t remember the name of the place and I can’t google it!! lol)  It seemed to be quite a popular hang out for the 20-somethings that filled the place.  The lunch was very good. Anyway, there was a really good view of the Queen Mary from that side of the harbor.  If you look real close at the bow of the ship you can make out the conning tower of the Russian Submarine.

We had fun wandering through all the unique little shops in the village.   One of the sights in the harbor near the Shoreline Village we saw a pirate ship! LOL!  At least it was outfitted to look like one with skeletons, cannons and even a parrot looking out the window in the cabin. The boat looked like it was better suited to sitting at the dock than actually sailing.  There was so much stuff all over the decks that it would no doubt take a while for them to get the boat sea-worthy.  Oh well.  It was neat to see.  After the shopping and wandering, we caught the shuttle back over to the parking area near the Queen Mary and headed back to my cousin’s home…

We spent another night at that motel in Torrance that had the 1 second WiFi connection.  Before we left the next morning, I found out what it was that was providing the “WiFi” there.  The motel manager had a cell phone sitting on the desk next to his computer.  He swore up and down that the WiFi was working and picked up his cell phone and showed me.  Somebody please tell me that cell phones aren’t what other places use to power their WiFi for their hotels/motels.  The other thing about that motel was the “breakfast” that they offered.  They had a few little cellophane wrapped muffins and sweet rolls on a plate and a coffee pot next to them.  I tried to get some coffee before leaving but the coffee pot was empty.. lol.. Time to go!  Before leaving town, we had a good breakfast with my cousin at a little place called “Scotty’s” which is right on the beach in Redondo Beach (I think!).

On the 13th, we went on down to Chula Vista for a visit with my Great-Aunt for a couple days.  (And no chance of internet connections.. lol)  On our way down, we stopped at a "Vista Point” that overlooked the ocean near Camp Pendleton that had a fantastic view of the sea.  Far out to see we saw a ship and a smaller boat closer in.  And that’s the last picture I took until now.  We had a great time there visiting and playing a dice game that my Aunt loves playing.  After leaving Chula Vista this morning (2/15), we decided to take the “scenic route” towards Palm Springs.  So we caught I8 towards El Centro and then took highway 86 north along the shore of the Salton Sea.  We, and all the other vehicles on the highways got slowed by a couple Border Patrol checkpoints.  Once on I8 and once on Hwy 86.  Everyone got shuttled over into one lane and then crawled past the Border Patrol Guards and their dogs.  We also came across the remains of a bad accident.  It looked like a semi had run off the road and down into a ravine for some reason.  The tow trucks had just finished bringing the cab of the truck up on to the shoulder of the road as we passed.  (And with my lousy luck so far with WiFi connections, I can’t google to find out any information about a truck accident on I8 this morning.)  I hope the driver came out of it ok.

We enjoyed the drive up along the Salton Sea.  It was interesting to see how much all the towns have grown over the years.  It was also interesting to see how many date groves are left.  We couldn’t find a single date stand along the road, so we had no chance of buying any fruit.  Oh well, maybe tomorrow when we go roaming around.  I should have more pictures to share tomorrow.  Hopefully I can get an internet connection in order to upload stuff tomorrow!  I mean, come on! We’re at a Holiday Inn! things should work here! lol

2/16 ~ Hurray!  The Holiday Inn we’re in moved us to a different room and I’ve got real WiFi! LOL! We’re catching our breath and then will head out to see if we can ride the tram and then later maybe go visit the desert zoo that’s here.  I’ll do another post tonight with some pictures and maybe some results of google search to straighten out some of my puzzles in the last couple posts..

Still on the Road… But WiFi Challenged..

2/14 ~ Happy Valentine’s day everyone! And yes, I know it’s going to be after the 14th when I finally get this published to the blog.  I know I promised I’d post pictures often, but I’ve been a little bit challenged by the “online” opportunities I’ve had since we left Morro Bay.  More on that story later.  I guess I’m going to need to invest in one of those gadgets that plug into the laptop so I can get online no matter where Mom and I travel.  Any recommendations? lol

2/11 ~ Ok, so when we left Morro Bay Friday morning, we went on south on Highway 101 and then stopped in Solvang for a little while so we could do a bit of window shopping and, of course, visit a bakery or two.  While we were there, a nice woman in the visitor’s center gave us a map of the valley and marked some points of interest on the map.  We chose to visit two of them.   A  miniature horse ranch and another ranch with miniature donkeys.  (Hmm.. Is it “donkeys” or  “donkies”? lol.. Spellcheck says that “donkeys” is the right one.)  Ok.. On we go.. The miniature horse ranch is called Quicksilver Ranch and they have dozens of beautiful little miniature horses.  We pulled into their visitor’s parking lot and spent a little bit of time wandering around and watching the little horses as they grazed and wandered around their fenced enclosures.  The ones in the picture to the left are pretty calm and quiet, but in other enclosures, the little horses were rolling around on the ground, chasing each other or just kicking up their heels for the heck of it.   It’s hard to get a size comparison until you see the horses next to someone..  This young lady was grooming one of her horses near the barn, so there was the perfect opportunity to show the size of the miniature horse.  She told us that 3 of the little horses were “hers” and that she was responsible for grooming and taking care of them.   Here’s the young lady with another of her little horses, and you can get an even better idea of the size of the little animals.  (By the way, the barn was completely empty of animals.  There wasn’t a single horse in any of the stalls.  I guess the weather was just too nice to keep them confined indoors.)  We watched a few of the mares that were in separate enclosures,  one was in heavy labor and another one wasn’t far behind, so soon they’ll have a bunch of foals bouncing around in those fields.  After we left Quicksilver Ranch,  we went on up the road through Ballard and drove along looking for the miniature donkeys.  The lady at the Solvang information center didn’t know the name of the ranch, but she said the donkeys were right there next to the road.  And they were!  There was also a nice “Visitors are Welcome” sign next to the driveway.   This picture doesn’t give you much of a size comparison to anything but the fence.  It was about shoulder high on me and I’m 5’8”, so that should give you an idea of how small the donkeys are.  None of the donkeys were very happy that day.  They had all just gotten their shots and gotten dewormed, so they were a bit disgruntled.  One of the full size donkeys was very unhappy with the humans on the ranch.  He still had a halter on him and the woman at the ranch couldn’t get anywhere near him to take it off..   She even went in the corral with the two larger donkeys and let one of them push her around a bit.  But, the striped leg guy just wouldn’t let her come anywhere near him.  He did not want another shot or to be dewormed again. The lady said that he would calm down in a hour or two and she’d be able to get the halter off him.  The donkeys weren’t the only critters on the ranch with the little donkeys.  They have a pair of turkeys as well.   The big fellow is named Tom and anytime anyone said “gobble” to him, he’d gobble right back at them.  One lady who was visiting at the same time we were there had a ball making the turkey gobble at her.  The hen just stood there watching the tom.  She never made a sound while we were there.

After leaving the donkey ranch, we traveled on down the coast to Simi Valley.  Mom wanted me to see the Ronald Reagan Library.  The main thing I wanted to see in there was Air Force One.  They have the plane on display in a specially built building with the wall in front of the nose of the plane being almost entirely made of glass.  The “tour” goes into the plane in the front, and you exit at the back.  We were surprised at how cramped for space it was in the plane.  The cockpit was also extremely cramped for space.  There were 5 seats crammed in there with hardly any space to even turn around.  Of course, that might be “normal” for the cockpit of a 707, I don’t know.  I’d never been able to look inside one before.  The next thing you go past is the “communication center”, which was a whole panel of radios and the like along one side of the plane with a small galley on the other side.  (If I remember right.) Both Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan had their own offices, each with a couch that folds down into a bed.  Of course, there was a huge jar of Jelly Belly candies on the president’s desk.  After you get past the two offices, you come into a compartment with a number of seats that would almost qualify as first class seats.  They were for the top advisors that flew with the Reagans.  The next compartment was set up for the lower echelon of people and the security guys.  The last compartment looked more like “coach” seating and that was for any members of the press who wanted to buy a ticket to fly with the President.  The Reagan Whitehouse charged the press corps the price of a regular airline ticket plus $1.  Of course, there was a smaller, busier galley back in the section for the press and then the restrooms were in the tail.  A big man would have been unable to walk normally down the “hall” through the plane.  Even I had to turn sort of sideways to get through.  It was definitely interesting to see the inside of that plane.  They had a few more vehicles there on display, a limo, a police car and motorcycle and Marine One, the helicopter that picked the President up from the Whitehouse to go wherever.   We saw a few more exhibits, including a scale model of the Whitehouse. 

After leaving there, we went in search of a motel and ended up clear down in Torrance since it was near a cousin’s home.  And here’s a bad review of a motel for you.  If you end up in Torrance do not stay at the Super 8 motel if you want any kind of connection to the internet.  They advertised that they had WiFi, but once we got settled in the room and I unpacked the laptop we discovered that the WiFi was only connected to the internet for 1 minute out of 5.     And sometimes I didn’t even have a full 1 minute to get a web page loaded.  The network connection was more “local only” than it was “local and internet”.  The beds in the room were ok, the room was clean and so on.  But the WiFi was darn near impossible to use.  More about that later.. lol.. I’m going to end this post and will publish it to the blog the first chance I get… On to the next blog entry!

2/15 ~ We’re sitting in Palm Springs tonight and I’ve got a WiFi connection of sorts.. Uploading this blog entry and will finish typing the next one and getting it uploaded soon.

On the Road Again....

Greetings folks.. We're doing some more traveling this week and next... This time it's just my Mom and I and we're slowly driving down the coast towards San Diego in the next couple of days.  Today, our first view of the coast was Morro Bay.   Once we got our room and looked around for a restaurant that was recommended to us, we drove out the peninsula to Morro Rock.   The weather was perfect for wandering around looking at the scenery and watching the birds.  This fellow was on a rock right in front of where we parked and kept posing for us.   We just had to take a picture of him...

Here's a "close up" view of part of the rock.  We learned that Morro Rock was once a "plug" for a volcano that was active about 26 million years ago.  We also learned that there are several more "plugs" that we may be able to spot as we travel south from here.  As we wandered down the path, we kept looking up at the top of the rock hoping to spot one of the peregrine falcons that nest on the rock, but all we saw were the seagulls.. Lots of seagulls.  We wandered around admiring the view and watching a few boats coming into the harbor. 

After we wandered around on the South side of Morro Rock, we got back in the car and drove over to the big parking area on the North-East side of the rock to watch the waves come in..

There were quite a few surfers out catching waves and it was fun watching them.  We ended up getting back in the car to watch them though.  The whole parking lot was in the shade and with the wind blowing, it was a bit too chilly to watch the waves.  Especially since neither Mom nor I were wearing our jackets..  I did manage to catch a fairly decent shot of a couple of the surfers from the car..

We did have "company" as we sat in the car watching the surfers and the folks on the beach.  This young gull decided we were worth his attention.  He parked himself just below the driver's side window and peeped at me. Continuously.  He was sooo hoping I'd drop something to eat down on the ground for him.  It was tempting.  Until I looked around the parking area at the dozens and dozens of gulls that were looking for goodies and handouts.  I just took a few more pictures, then started the car up and headed out to get some dinner.  If any of you manage to get to Morro Bay, I recommend you look for a little restaurant called "The Whale's Tail".  They served us some excellent clam chowder and some delicious fish and chips.  After dinner, we headed back down to the marina so we could watch the sun set... And I'll leave you for tonight with one of the shots I got of the sun going down... And now I'm going to go kick back on the bed and veg...  G'nite all!

A Visit to San Francisco (Day 2)

Did I mention that we stayed at the Wharf Inn in San Francisco? lol Yeah, I know I mentioned it in the other post. The photos for this post are from the second day and I figured I'm mention how comfy the rooms were at this motel. Even my trucker friend liked his room and he's a picky kind of guy. We went back over to Fisherman's Wharf to have breakfast at the Boudin Bakery as well as to buy some yummy sourdough bread to take home with us. Breakfast was fast and yummy. Even the coffee was good! After buying a few assorted loaves of sourdough bread, we headed back over to the motel to check out.

Next stop; Golden Gate Park. This time, though we didn't completely rely on the GPS for our directions to the part of the park we wanted to visit. I spent a little time on Google maps and wrote down some general directions so we'd be able to tell if the GPS decided to go nutty again. We went up some of the steepest hills in San Francisco and cruised past Lombard Street just for "effect". I mean, if you're taking a visitor from another country around San Francisco, you have to do that, right? lol

My trucker friend really wanted to visit the Japanese Tea Gardens and to sit down for a "traditional Japanese tea". So we headed straight (Or sort of straight) for the area of the park where the Tea Gardens are. We ended up parking in the underground parking that's under the California Academy of Sciences and then walking across the Music Concourse near the Spreckels Temple of Music.

We walked around behind the building to find the restrooms and came across a couple of San Francisco's "finest". The three of us told the two cops that they had the best jobs in town and both of them agreed. The lady cop told us that she'd been trying to get the mounted assignment for years and she'd just gotten the "promotion" to mounted a few months before. She said that there are no rookie cops riding horseback. She was on the list for almost 27 years. The fellow agreed with her. And with us, about their jobs being the best in the city.

The entrance gate to the Tea Gardens:

And here are a few photos of some of the beautiful sights you see when you wander around in the gardens.

I even climbed the drum bridge! It's a lot bigger than it looks in the pictures! lol

And I asked for permission to post a photo of my trucker friend and his fiance... The actual tea house is in the back ground behind him and the gift shop is above her shoulder behind the glorious azaleas.

Speaking of the azaleas, how's this for color:

After we left the Tea Gardens, we drove the length of the park over to the coast. We stopped at a lovely restaurant called the Beach Chalet, right across the Great Highway from the beach. We had a window table with a beautiful view and we had a very delicious lunch. After lunch, we headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and drove across to the vista point on the North side of the bridge. Of course we had to stop and enjoy the view.

A little bit of color on the hillside below the vista point;

And that's the trip to San Francisco. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures!

Traveling Again... Fires... And Losses...

Yesterday, I spent the day with my parents out in the car for a day trip. This time my Step-dad decided on going up to Nevada City for breakfast and then on up the hill to Truckee for window shopping and lunch. When we arrived in Grass Valley on Highway 20, we heard sirens and then saw an ambulance and a fire truck racing up behind us, then we saw off to one side of the road a large column of smoke rising up through the trees. We couldn't see what was burning, and with my folks in the car, I wasn't about to go chasing the smoke with my camera to get photos. Also, we weren't able to get over to the side in traffic so that could step out of the car to get a photo of the column of smoke. So, once the emergency vehicles were clear of us, I took the turn onto Highway 49 so that we could get up to Nevada City.

*Skipping forward in time, when we got back to Yuba City and my parents home, I got on their computer to look up some information and found that the smoke was saw in Grass Valley was a fully involved apartment building. Two people were injured and about 13 were left homeless. (Source of photo and information: The Union) One of the injured was a woman who was apparently in the apartment where the fire started. She suffered burns and injuries from exploding oxygen tanks. I haven't been able to find information on how she is this morning. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

After breakfast in Nevada City, we traveled on up to Truckee and spent a few hours wandering around the town, window shopping and enjoying the cooler weather. There are a lot of very interesting little shops and lots of friendly shopkeepers. After wandering through the shops and having a little lunch (No comment on the lunch nor the restaurant we ate at beyond the fact that I doubt if we'll be going back there.. lol), we headed back down I80 towards home. I'd say about half-way down from the summit, I saw flashing lights in the rear view mirror, and it wasn't a cop. It was a fire vehicle (Not a fire engine, it was a supervisor vehicle. An SUV type.) and he literally flew past us and we lost sight of him rather quickly. A couple miles after we lost sight of him, we saw off in the distance between the trees a very large column of smoke billowing up. It was nearly impossible to tell at that point where the fire was because the road twists and turns so much. We got a few more glimpses of the growing column of smoke as we traveled down the highway. And we saw a lot more fire vehicles, engines, crew trucks and supervisors. As we got near Applegate, the color of the smoke suddenly turned from the brown/tan color of a brush or wildland fire to thick black smoke. We knew then that there were structures involved. And from the amount of smoke, we thought there a lot of buildings involved.

After we got off I80, we drove down near the town of Lincoln so we could get a clear view of the smoke and stopped so that I could get out of the car to take a couple photos. In the photo to the left, you can see the thick, dark color of the smoke. At this point we were less than 10 miles (as the crow flies) from the fire. In the next photo, you can see a wide shot of how the smoke was "laying down" and being blown to the north. Even during the few moments we were stopped alongside the road while I took those few photos, we saw another fire truck go by with lights and sirens.

*Skipping forward in time again to us looking up the fire information on the computer at my folk's house, we found out that the smoke we'd been watching on our way down from Donner Pass was the "49er Fire" in the northern part of the city of Auburn. And the black smoke we saw was coming from 50 to 60 structures that were being destroyed. Businesses and residences both. I haven't seen a full official count of structures lost yet. There are still a lot of trucks and firefighters out on the fire this morning, and the last I saw, the fire is still just 60% contained.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful, thank goodness. We unloaded our goodies from Truckee and sorted things out and watched some of the news coverage of the fire in Auburn. I headed for home then, but on the way, I decided to stop and take one more photo looking back towards Auburn and that column of smoke. I picked a spot where the highway climbs up a levee on the Sutter Bypass and pulled off to the side of the road. At this point, all you can see of that black column of smoke we saw earlier is a smudge against the horizon because of the haze in the valley.

The latest information from the CalFire website says that the 49er fire has burned 275 acres (Down from the 500 acres the news stations were reporting yesterday due to more accurate mapping of the fire today.) The CalFire website is also reporting that 60 structures were either damaged or destroyed.

More information, videos and photos from the 49er fire in Auburn can be found in these links:
KCRA3
News10.net
CBS13/CW31
Fox40 News

In other fire news, the Station fire near Los Angeles doubled in size overnight to 85,750 acres burned. And it took the lives of two Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighters yesterday.

The official release about the deaths of the firefighters is here:

Firefighter Line of Duty Deaths

It is with our deepest regret to inform you the media of the Line Of Duty Deaths for Fire Captain Tedmund "Ted" Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones. These two members tragically lost their lives when the where overran by a fast moving fire which approached Fire Camp 16 on the "Station Fire" Incident.

Fire Captain Tedmund "Ted" Hall was 47 years of age and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for 26 years and lived in San Bernardino County, California. Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones was 35 years of Age, and was a member of the Los Angeles County Fire department for 8 years and lived in Palmdale, California.

Funeral arrangements are pending and information relating to services will be made available in the near future.

For additional information, please contact Captain Mike Brown, Public Information Officer at (323) 881-2413.

I've said many times that firefighters are heroes. We have two more fallen heroes now. Please say a little prayer or have a good thought or two for these two heroes as well as for their families, friends and co-workers.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today issued the following statement after two Los Angeles County firefighters died while fighting the Station fire:

“Our hearts are heavy as we are tragically reminded of the sacrifices our firefighters and their families make daily to keep us safe. This is a devastating day for firefighters everywhere and Maria and I join all Californians in expressing our gratitude and sadness. Our hearts go out to their loved ones.”

The other blog that I post on has information as well: California Fire News

~~

So many firefighters out there on all of the fires that are threatening people, homes and wildlands. Please take a few minutes today and think of the thousands of men and women who choose to protect you and yours.