Fire on the Mountain
We celebrated my daughter's 16th birthday with a camping trip to a Northern California lake. There were seven of us in all. Our immediate family and a couple of her friends. We forgot newspaper to light the barbecue. It wasn't a problem. The fallen eucalyptus leaves and abundance of twigs of varying sizes from the shady oaks and sycamores that surrounded the shore provided a quick way to get the coals going. They lit up like the head of a matchstick. I reflected briefly on commonality of severe wildfires in California now, and on my friends and fellow citizens who had lost homes in the Camp, CZU, and Woolsey fires. Campfires were forbidden at this campground. Which is a bummer when you're camping. But, we'd get by without one. We swam, paddle boarded, and blew up an inflatable boat that was on its last legs, giving a quick ride out to the middle of the lake, and a humorous ride back that ended with the the occupants deep in the water and pulling a sad sack of yellow