Let's recap:

Fires are burning hundreds of thousands of acres of mountains and foothills, and are not finished yet. I only have a vague idea of what an acre is, but I know this is a lot, and these parts of the mountains will look very different after this. The Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear area(s) in particular will have a different mood with the large gaps in the trees that are obviously going to be there, not to mention the difference if the towns themselves burn -- relatively vintage little vacation towns, these, vintage by Los Angeles standards anyway, which means 1920s-30s or earlier.

Two massive solar flares within about a day, throwing massive amounts of energy our way. Everybody say thank you to Earth's magnetosphere for protecting us from this sort of thing, and making them into pretty light shows to boot (too bad I live too far south to see anything, even if the smoke haze weren't in the way).

This smoke, by the way, has hung above us for almost a week now, sometimes thick enough to turn the sun into a dim orange ball, sometimes thin enough to resemble a normal day.

There was a 2.8 earthquake yesterday near the Simi Valley area where one of the fires is. For the uninitiated, 2.8 is smallish, you wouldn't notice anything farther away than... oh i don't know, 10-15 miles, maybe 20? depending on how sensitive you are.

A chance of snow in these mountains is forecast for tomorrow (Friday) night.

The falling into the sea part will be coming later, as we get into the rainy season and all this freshly burned dirt turns into mudslides, which will probably take out at least a few houses that escaped being burned.

I think that about covers it so far. If I notice four odd-looking fellows riding around on horses, I'll let you know. Although, considering tomorrow is Halloween, people might just figure they were on their way to the West Hollywood street party.

contents of the purple tricycle are copyright 2003 carrie lynn king unless otherwise noted.