Welcome to California!

We made it to Colton, CA yesterday about 6 p.m. Pacific time.  Boy, did that feel good.  It was a long drive, 470 miles total for the day.  Also we topped off our tank in Marano, NM (a northern suburb of Tucson where Mira Vista is actually located) at $1.89 a gallon.  We got to Colton on one tank and filled it up by the Denny's where we had dinner at $2.89 a gallon.  Yeah, welcome to California!

Today we should only have 387 miles to drive north to San Jose, although we will stop in San Jose to do some grocery shopping before going straight to her house.  We hope to hit a kosher store for some meat as well because Mark plans to cook Friday night in the house.  Still, if there are no problems, we do not think it will be too late when we are finally unloading everything out of the car and into Evey's house.

In Colton we can see the huge Blue Cut fire in San Bernardino county, just on the back side of the mountains. In fact as we came towards our hotel on I-10, we could see the smoke billowing up from the side of the mountain.  We could even see the smoke from Denny's.  32,000 acres have burned and 83,000 people have been evacuated.  It's a bad one.  Yesterday it was 0% contained, but the news says this morning that it is 4% contained.  The intense heat, dry conditions, and wind are all making this fire very difficult for the fire fighters.  Sadly, it was started on purpose by an arsonist who had started several other fires in the area including one next to an elementary school and next to a manufactured home community.  Those two fires were smaller and were put out more easily.  He is in jail now, thankfully.  What a horrible person!  I hope they throw the book at him, and that it's a very large book!

Crossing the Colorado River, the border between AZ and CA.

Sign in the middle of the bridge.  We made it!

All the smoke is the fire on the mountain.

Not clouds!  Smoke!

At Denny's as the sun set, the smoke started to look orange in the sky.