san diego is burning?

This past weekend I escaped to San Diego with two girlfriends. We had a picnic and watched seals and beautiful people for hours at La Jolla, spent an hour trying to find parking in the Gaslamp District and then wore out feet out walking blocks and blocks in heels, sipped wine in the sun in Temecula overlooking a vineyard while the wind threatened to snatch anything not nailed down, marveled at IKEA and signs advertising an "electric car charging station," talked about men. We had a good time, even if the first place we chose to go dancing turned out to be so sketchy we left without going in, and the second one didn't actually play salsa music, and there were those inevitable tense direction-less exchanges that happen when no one really knows where they're going in a big city.
That last part took me back to college road trips, where June and/or Rachael and I explored Alabama, New Orleans, Arizona, San Francisco, strong personalities clashing into occasional flares of rage, quickly forgiven because where can you find better friends than this? Is there anyone you'd rather see the Grand Canyon or the Maple Leaf or the redwoods with, or talk about God at 11pm on a dark highway, or get a speeding ticket with? Of course not. And because we deeply and unconsciously knew that true relationships do not form or survive without confronting conflict.
Well, that's a tangent. June and Rachael, if you're reading this, you'll always be my best friends even if June never comes back from China and Rachael stays in Alabama forever. You know that.
On the way back to Yuma through the undescribable boulder-strewn mountains that I will never in a million years get used to, the crazy fall winds named "Santa Anas" picked up, threatening to fling the little rental Nissan off into the vast valleys on either side of the road. Luckily the wind didn't continue into the desert, because otherwise we would have been caught in a vicious sandstorm like the one that shut down the highway two weeks ago. This morning I read that San Diego county- actually some of the suburbs, not the city itself- is on fire, wildfires popping up all over, fed by the gusting winds and a drought. We did pass through some smoke on Sunday as we left Temecula, but we had no idea of the extent of the fires that were to come. People are losing their homes and the fire department just can't contain all the burning. That makes me sad, because Southern California is as gloriously beautiful as it is unaffordable, the red tile roofed houses on mountains spotted with white rocky outcroppings and pencil-thin trees, the huge waves, the unnervingly shiny-new and clean cities. I would say it's God's country, except that I'm pretty sure that his Son and 90% of the world's population couldn't afford to live there. So I'll just say it's gloriously beautiful and leave it at that. =)