5.Versluys'.us

The fire that threatened Wrightwood is nearly fully contained, leaving behind charred ground along what used to be a beautiful canyon, but also leaving our house and town intact.

The only other casualty of the fire and evacuation, besides hundreds of pine trees and manzanita, was our camera memory stick adapter. In the hullabaloo, it was misplaced. Lost. Gone. Thankfully, there weren’t any photos on the memory stick.

sharing a blanket

But it also means I can’t get the current crop of high-res adorable new baby and fawning big sister shots off the camera.

So you’re stuck with a brief narrative of our evacuation drama, and a set of pictures I took on my phone.

On Saturday afternoon Katie came up to hang out, and reported seeing flames from the freeway on her way over. We knew there was a fire in Lone Pine Canyon, but obviously hoped it would be out soon. As it turned out, the fire raced up the canyon during the evening, and by the time we were woken up by a needy Nora at 3 a.m. the latest information showed that the east side of town was under evacuation. We went outside to see a bright glow of flames at the end of the valley, and it was an interesting 7 hours (sleep on and off, monitoring the websites, making mental lists of what to pack if necessary, etc.) until we finally got the evacuation orders.

It was quite helpful to have Katie’s extra hands and car trunk space during the first Wrightwood evacuation in nearly 50 years.

heading out of town

There wasn’t much beyond a week’s worth of clothes, photos, and important documents that we needed to take, so it was a relatively simple and calm exit.

Quincy was the calmest of us all

We headed to my parents’ house in Twin Peaks, where we spent only two nights before the evacuation order was lifted on Tuesday at noon. Many people have asked if we were scared or worried about our house… after years of living in and enjoying the mountains, I have found that my biggest fear is that our mountain will be scorched to the point where we can’t rebuild. If our house were to burn down, we would gladly rebuild so long as there are trees around. But if the entire valley was incinerated, we wouldn’t have anything to come home to – our mountain wouldn’t return to its forested state for many many years.

As for all our “stuff”, I have a little side note to share on that topic…

After losing my much loved 1963 Volkswagen Bug (gorgeous, sparkly blue, convertible, and with the endearing name of Paco) to thieves during my sophomore year of college, I learned a lot about finding my happiness in things that can’t be stripped and sold piece-meal. And then when I returned from vacation later that year to find my red retro bike stolen from in front of my dorm, I learned a lot more. And then, when my home for a semester (Aunt Jannie’s cabin) was burglarized and all my jewelry that I’d collected from my travels was stolen (along with several bottles of wine and champagne that probably went to waste on some punk kids, and my DVD collection), I decided to once again use that opportunity to revisit my priorities. After those lessons, and since the the arrival of my three kids, I would be perfectly content returning to a charred house so long as we were returning with our kids safe and sound. Happy? Probably not. But content? Definitely. There are more important things in life than stuff. And I had those four important “things” with me when we left the mountain.

One of my four “things”

It was wonderful to drive home on Tuesday night, especially as I heard Roma pipe up from the backseat as we rounded this corner: “there’s our mountain!”

(That’s a sunset, FYI, not flames).

We were greeted at our house by not only by an intact home and forested valley, but by the girls’ favorite Oma! Mom V. is here to meet Nora and hang out with the girls as I slowly get back into the swing of things (that’s another post of its own). She arrived on Tuesday night, thankfully after the evacuation was lifted, and is staying for another week and a half. Dad is driving out from Colorado this weekend, and he and Mom are going to take a three-day jaunt to Bakersfield with Roma and Quincy next week. I’m hoping to squeeze in a trip to the aquarium somewhere in there so I have an excuse to try out our new stroller.

So it’s a busy month around here, even as we wait impatiently for Nora’s little cousin Charlotte to make her grand entrance (Keegan’s due date was last Monday… she’s getting a bit tired of being pregnant – understatement – so we are praying this little girl gets a move on for her mama’s sake!).

Thank you to all who were praying for our home and safety – we are thankful beyond measure that our town is intact and the firefighters did such a great job protecting Wrightwood!