The Money Shot

There will be times when I go days, perhaps even a couple weeks, without posting, so two in one day is an anomaly. But I had to post this one while the link was still live.

Check out the slide show. Yeah...that's My Favorite. *swoon*

Not Completely Uneventful

With as much traveling as I do, I often get the question "How was the trip?" And I often answer "Uneventful, just as I like it." It is not, however, always uneventful. Sometimes there's a little something interesting thrown in.

I had peered at the horizon and realized I was looking at fire smoke several miles back. This was when I called my mom, though.

Since she and her husband live in CA and know how to get CA information, I asked my mom to see if there were road closures on the highway ahead of me. She went to her husband, said "Mame needs us" and they dropped everything and settled down in front of their computers.

No road closures according to CalTrans (California Transportation) or CalFire. So I knew I could keep driving. Eventually though, I came around a corner and needed to get off the phone.

Because I was driving into this:

It was a grass fire and CalFire was on it. 

Once I got through it, I called my mom and her husband to assure them all was well. But it was nice to have been able to make the call.

In a move that, had it happened in a movie, none of us would have believed, the moment I hung up with them for the last time and turned back on my radio, the very first thing I heard was, 

"All right, some news; there's a grass fire on 580 backing up traffic, so expect some delays, but CalFire is on it, so everything should be moving again soon."

A little excitement for the trip to My Favorite and his fire..

This is when I realized I was looking at the real fire

Yep, real fire.

What I found out last night is that the fire I'd been referring to as "My Favorite's Fire" actually is his fire. He was spotted it and called it in first. One of those little things that make me proud.

Another thing that makes me proud...back before we had ever met but were just words on computer screens, he told me about saving horses, so that has always been a priority for him. Yesterday, he was watching deer and rabbits scampering, running scared, in front of the fire. As he puts it, there was nowhere for them to go. So, he took his bucket and cleared a path through the fire for them. They ran back through the fire and into the part that had already been burned over and was now out (known as "the black" as I learned) where they would be safe. 

Yeah...not only does he protect people's homes, but he saves Bambi and Thumper, too.

How It Usually Works

I decided to come back here and then things slowed waaaaaay down and got boring. Naturally. However, this is how it usually works:

The phone rang this morning, about 5:50. There was a fire call. By 7:00, we'd packed, loaded the car with the heavy stuff, and I had him at the airport.

We know where the fire is (St. Martin, CA), but not where we're spending the night yet. So, I'll stay in the Modesto hotel room until checkout at noon, then hang out in the lobby until I know where I'm supposed to go next. All else fails, I'll head toward St. Martin and meet him at the McDonalds. 

The 4th of July

Here in the States, it's a holiday weekend. Today is our independence day. It's a day of ambivalence for me on most years ~ we promised so much, and delivered so little (with a hat tip to John Adams, who was only one of seven founding fathers to never own slaves {only one of the seven was from outside of New England, I'm just saying} and was probably America's first male feminist, marrying a woman whose education and advice he valued and insisting his daughters be educated equally to his sons) ~ but this year...wow. My ambivalence has ambivalence about this 4th of July. 

So, instead of getting any deeper into the politics of the day, I'm going to tweak and repost something from another blog I used to write. It's still applicable today.

The holiday weekend has brought the emotional beginning of summer and the seasonal PSA here at Stilettos in the Outback. Summer is great ~ beaches (if you're socially distancing!), frosty drinks, picnics (6 feet apart, please), barbecues...yeah, that last one. Folks, have your bbqs. Toast your marshmallows and eat your s'mores. Just please, don't set shit on fire.

This isn't hard. Not lighting shit on fire is remarkably easy, in fact. So easy anyone can do it. Put it on the top of your summer list: Don't Set Shit On Fire. Ta-Dah.

Second on the list? Should you set some shit on fire ~ or someone else should set shit on fire ~ and the people who are in charge of things like this tell you to evacuate, get the fuck out.

The Summer To Do List

1. Don't set shit on fire.

2. Get the fuck out.

Not hard. Very easy. Feel free to pass this along. The firefighters, the smokejumpers, the helicopter pilots, and yes, the people who love them, thank you.

Backing Up a Bit—My Favorite at Work

I realized something this morning. There is A LOT missing from this blog. Some of it happened before I started writing it. Some of it happened while I was writing it, but I just never wrote it. Some of it happened between the time I shut down and now.

So, I'm going to back up a bit, capture some images and stories that aren't here, and relive some moments. I'm also using it as an excuse to fangirl over My Favorite.

He fights fires. He logs. He does construction. He works on power lines. He moves people between power lines. He transports people from one place to another. He does search and rescue. He performs recoveries. He has flown tours in Hawaii, worked on a tuna boat in the South Pacific, been with researchers in the Arctic, and helped with clean-up in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. 

One of my favorite stories (that I was around for) happened while he was in Mexico. I was still stateside because of a deadline, but his gig had started so he headed across the border. They were flying the federales into the jungle looking for drugs and drug dealers, when they found tons of the stuff. Tons. So, being good federales, they set it on fire to destroy the crop.

Since it was going to take some time and he had cell service, he called me. We talked for about 20 minutes when I realized...he was giggly. Not laughing, not joking. Giggling. When I asked him where he was, he looked around and then he realized. Needless to say, he moved upwind. 

This is what it looks like sometimes when he flies...

His version of texting and driving

In spite of what the name tag says, don't ever call him Dave. He hates that

Maintenance Test Flight with my favorite mechanic

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This is what he does. And while there are a handful of people who do it as well, nobody does it better.

The adventure continues...

Modesto, CA

Really no need to caption that one, is there?

We've been in Modesto for so long that neither My Favorite nor I remember off the tops of our heads. For fire season, that's a long-ass time. But because of COVID-19, we're still not doing a lot. Didn't get to see the grandkids or the other set of grandparents that we really like, even though they're less than an hour away. Not going shopping or to movies or even out to many dinners. Which means I don't have as many stories about Modesto as I normally would a place we've been long enough to forget when we got here. 

Still...

The hotel is nice...

More and more, I'm a Marriott fan

I've written already that it's the best place we've been so far, in spite of the grab and go breakfast cakes. There is some information further down in this post that may make you question that. Trust that neither of them change how much I love this hotel.

There are really pretty flowers...

See? Really pretty flowers

And a Motel 6 right across the street...

The fighting and sirens keep us from being homesick for Philly

And since it's right around the 4th of July, we get to play "Fireworks or Gunfire?" Always a good time!

Then there's this store, just a few doors away from the Motel 6...

Cookies

Now, as someone who doesn't eat a lot of sugar, and doesn't even struggle with it, I admit, living this close to a Cookie Monster colored cookie shop has been a bit of a challenge. In fact, the only reason I haven't gone in is because I am doing a 3-week-no-dessert-or-sugar-no-my-friend-not-even-ice-cream-because-that-was-your-rule challenge with a friend who needed some accountability and support.

Well, folks, I am grateful for that challenge. Not just because I have access to tres leches at the store every damn day, but because it turns out the cookie shop isn't a cookie shop. Nope. Pot store. Right there. Big, blue pot store. And it's been a long time since college. 

See? Not much happening. But sometimes, there's not much happening.

The adventure continues, even when it's dull...

Ps ~ My Favorite has just informed me that we arrived here on June 25th. In case you were wondering. 😉

Family Dinner

I’ve written about cookouts with the crew before here and here and have had so, so many of them in the years I wasn't writing the blog.

Sometimes they looked like this:

 

Snowed in in Grangeville, ID with the Billings crew

More often they looked like this:

Tailgating at the Red Carpet Inn, Medford, OR, with the mechanic from Airlift

And I'll be honest ~ the first couple are awkward. Getting to know a new crew takes a minute. So, the first ones tend to look like this: 

Behind the hotel, Modesto, CA

A little awkward, a little uncomfortable. But by the end of the evening, we were chatting comfortably, a little easier with each other. By the end of the season? Well, I have hope, because I know what Family Dinner can be.

And the adventure continues...