Another month goes by

 Salinas, CA

I realized recently that although I keep up with 

everyone else's blogs, I fail to keep mine up!

As everyone else I'm sure, we are still SIP (sheltering in place).

Our illustrious governor has changed the guidelines

that the counties follow to reopen businesses.

It's even color coded!

Unfortunately our county (Monterey) is at the top tier (purple),

among almost all counties with the exception of a handful. 

Retail shops and grocery stores are open,

restaurants are open for outdoor dining only,

nail and hair salons are closed.

Masks are mandatory, with a stiff $100 fine if caught without one.

The local Walmart even has a UV sanitizing robot

which snuck up behind us!

California has a lot of wildfires burning.

Monterey county has 3 areas totaling thousands of acres.

One such area is called the River fire for its proximity

to River road paralleling the Salinas river.

It started last Sunday by a freak dry lightening storm.

It grew very fast, such that we could see it from our upstairs front window.

It was about 9 miles from us, but we were never in any danger

as a lot of the mileage is produce fields.

The fire was pretty impressive at night...

The map shows where the fire was and how close to Salinas.

                                    We are near the Salinas airport (where the airplane icon is).                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

As of today the fire has burned almost 49,000 acres and is now 73% contained.

Yesterday the smoke wasn't as bad,

so we took a ride over to Monterey to walk around a bit.

As you can see we make sure we have our masks on!

The sea lions were enjoying the low tide :-)

Other than that life goes on!

We're planning a trip across country

the end of September through the end of October.

Cooper wants to go, we don't want to fly,

so we're driving back to Pennsylvania

for a few weeks.

It should be fun!