Leaving L.A.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15th - 2008

This was the view from our hotel this morning when we woke up:

This was the view around 12:00 when we were checking out:

Up until today there had been 2 fires burning in California.  One was near Santa Barbara (not too close to us), the other was in the San Fernando Valley (a little closer, but still, not too bad).  However, 3 new fires broke out this morning.  One in Corona (to the east), One in Brea, and One in Yorba Linda (both to the northeast).   The Santa Ana winds have been blowing fiercely, combine that with high heat and extremely low humidity, and it is a disaster waiting to happen. The 3 new fires were all very close to Anaheim, and the air quality got very nasty very fast.  In fact, when we stepped out of our room into the lobby, you could smell the smoke and see ash in the air.  And that was while we were still INSIDE the hotel.  Outside it was much worse.    We had planned on Spending the day at Newport Beach.  We weren't supposed to check out until Sunday.  Instead, we packed it up and moved on down to San Diego.   It took us a little over an hour to get there.  By 2:30 we were on Mission Beach (way better than Newport anyway!).  Brian and I got to see the sunset on the beach.  It was awesome.  The best part was - no ash.

By the way, the sun set at 4:45 p.m.  What is the point of daylight savings time?  Who wants the sunset at 4:45.  It's very strange to me.  

Highlight of the day:  The spectacular sunset.  Having a hotel patio that looked out over the ocean.  Also, Brian took the boys out to dinner and I got the hotel room to myself.