I drove through the Groveland area near Yosemite a couple of days before the Rim Fire started on August 17. The local talk over Tioga Pass was then about the recent Aspen Fire in the Sierra National Forest. The Rim fire has now burned 400 square miles of forest and cost $122 million to fight to date. What started as a 40 acre fire when discovered exploded to over 100,000 acres within two days. It is now the third largest in California history.

My Hubby Norm and I have many long distance friends that come to visit us for several days at a time.

Prune orchards once reigned supreme in the Napa Valley. Pears, walnuts and fodder for grazing sheep were also grown where now 45,000 acres of premium wine grapes flourish.

“You’ll never run or ski again,” the emergency room doctor announced the moment I regained consciousness at San Francisco General Hospital.