Tule Fog

When Mr. Fun told me this morning that Tule Fog was on the meadow, I asked him to "take the camera and capture it." Years ago, our city used to experience lots of fog. That's when we were a city of citrus. Now we are a city of tract houses and that has changed the climate considerably.

Year ago when I used to ride the school bus across town, if we had a foggy morning, and we did often, the bus would be late because of the fog. We'd stand at the bus stop for an hour or more wondering when it would arrive. Nowadays, fog is rare. The two of us kind of think tule fog looks mysterious. If you look carefully, you can see the foothills off in the distance. So after nearly 3-years of blipping this is the first time tule fog has appeared in one of my blips.

Usually when I photograph the backyard, I try my best to diminish the bare dirt that leads to the green-way where there is a continual creek flowing from the run-off of the nearby neighborhoods. Our meadow is owned by the Orange County Municipal Water District. They insist on keeping the field weed-free and bare because it is a fire hazard, especially in the dry autumn Santana winds.

It's been 3 years since we've seen the meadow a beautiful green. When it was controlled by our city, the meadow would begin to grow and green in December or January and it was gorgeous. Then the city would tractor-mow the meadow in late April or early May and one year it was June. Then the OC folks took over. Our land is in Riverside County, but somehow Orange County has control of the water. I guess that is because we have the dam and they sit below it; they wanted to control all that sits on our side of the dam. If we ever have the 100 year flood, we just might have waterfront property because they certainly aren't going to let Orange County flood if they have anything to say about it. Do you smell politics all over this issue.

On another issue -- ours is a very sad household this evening after learning this afternoon about the death of Dan Wheldon at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier today. He was involved in a 15-car high speed crash. He was a wonderful young man, 33 years old with a wife and two young sons. He won the Indy 500 back in May.

When the two of us were first married, everything we did wrapped around cars, speed, races and more races. I was hooked and eventually knew more about the cars and drivers than most of Mr. Fun's buddies. Back then racing was much more dangerous and "Death was the rule, not the exception." When my hero, Peter Revson, was killed at a race track in South Africa in March of '74, I couldn't tolerate the loss and just lost interest. Over the years the race tracks have improved considerably and the tragedies have decreased, so today's news was shocking and enormously sad.

Years ago we always thought fog increased the possibility of fatalities. This morning looking at the tule fog, that thought never even crossed my mind. My heart hurts for Dan Wheldon's family.

Good night from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol