For the last month I’ve been teaching a class at San Diego State, which is about 2 hours from where we live in scenic little Hollywood. The drive is beautiful. Through the mountains, over hill and dale, and right past the ocean. Chrisanne and I have decided each weekend to take a little rest from our ultra glamorous lives and take a mini vacation by staying over night and romping through downtown shopping, eating, and watching the sea-life.

We’ve seen crabs and jelly fish, but who’s keeping track really?

Last weekend we decided to come straight home and spend the weekend watching TV in our own casa and watching the sea life that the cats drag in from the porch instead. It’s convenient, cozy, and most importantly in the midst of our economic nightmare, it’s free.

We remembered as we were driving to class that morning that there was a small fire brewing in the hills of California not far from where we live. We didn’t think much of it, as there’s usually a small fire brewing in the hills of California not far from where we live. We were remarking to each other that we literally just came from a land of ice and snow storms, to a land of earthquakes and fire balls.

We live our lives in extremes.

As my class ended, and we putted home, I rolled down the window after having been in the car for about an hour. I tend to suffer from a small dose of claustrophobia. I also don[t care much for sitting in a car for a long period of time. I get the feeling I’m trapped in a giant Tylenol.

We were half way home and the sun was just beginning to set. The sky line across the ocean was magnificent, especially at that time of day.

We drove a bit further, and as we headed towards one of the freeways, the traffic began to slow. This was unusual as it was Saturday and most traffic is either going the opposite way, or just coming back from a drunken stupor in Las Vegas.

“Traffic.” My wife said wearily.

“Ew.” I agreed.

As we approached the mountains and crept ever further, we then noticed a large cloud of thick, grey smoke billowing over our newly found sunset.

“Look at the damn smoke.” I said.

“The fire must be getting bigger.” She echoed.

We drove on. We then noticed the traffic getting thicker. Pretty soon we were stopped. And I don’t mean we were going so slow that you feel like we were stopped, we were stopped. Dead.

Like everyone else in a traffic jam, we tried to crane our necks to impossible angles in order to see above the miles and miles of parked cars. As if that would do any good. As if seeing over the hoods of things would make someone down the road suddenly say:

“Good Heavens! I’m holding up traffic! I’d better get a move on.”

But we did it anyway.

Nothing. Just hoods.

Just more and more and more cars. And as we inched further, still more cars, and another trail of thick, grey smoke. This time though, from the opposite end.

“Umm…honey? I think that puff of smoke is a different puff of smoke.” I said starting to panic.

Chrisanne turned on the radio, and we began to hear about the 3 massive fires literally engulfing people and land at an alarming rate. This usually would only worry us for fear of the millions of people left homeless, but now we had something else to worry about:

We were headed directly for it.

It was not only on 3 different sides of us, we were on our way to the center of the catastrophe.

We then turned on our GPS (which was given to us by my parents in law, and who they nick named “Maggie”) and begged for her help. When you’re just starting to panic, a calm, soothing, female mechanical voice can do wonders for you.

“Turn...left..at..the…nearest…off…ramp.” Maggie said in her soothing broken speech pattern.

We did.

That got us smack dab in the middle of the evacuation.

Hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of families and their dogs and cats and horses and pigs, piled into Chevy’s and Volkswagen’s were on their way out of town. We’d turn down a road, and run into 15 police cars, all waving and screaming at us to turn around. We’d turn down another road…the same thing. This happened over and over for almost 2 hours. Soon afterwards, Maggie’s voice went from soothing to annoying.

We were also traveling in a part of LA neither of us were familiar with. And the more we tried to escape the crowds or to find a way out, the deeper we got in to the belly of the beast. There came a point, where we were so turned around, and so tired, and so hungry Chrisanne, in the middle of one of those awful car silences, suddenly screamed:

“I DON’T KNOW WHERE THE F*@K I AM!!!”

I immediately got out the map, and we pulled over. The town we were in was so small, and our eyes are so old, we couldn’t find us anywhere.

We were lost.

Lost is not a thing my wife does very well.

I, of course, am used to it. I drive a lot in this town, and everything is over a hill or down a dale. You may go hither, you may go thither, but there are always turns or twists or big slides to go down. There’s really never a simple way to get anywhere. You have to really know where you are at all times. Even Maggie became confused. She kept trying to veer us back in the direction of the only freeway out of town…which was closed.

We pulled over at one time to ask a policeman where the nearest open road was, and he pointed upward to the Heavens and told us that if we waited 20 minutes, the freeway would probably be open.

We drove off. My wife cursing, and me grumbling.

“Why was he so angry?!” I began to shout.

“I don’t know!” she shouted back.

We weren’t shouting at each other, I think we were just shouting to hear ourselves make noise. And then silently, I wondered why he pointed upward to the Heavens. What a jerk. Why would he do that?! Why didn’t he just help us?? What was his problem?! And why was he dragging the Heavens into this?!!

I was now angry at Heaven.

The later it got, the more aggravated we became. Fire trucks would rush by us, people standing on corners waving flash lights attempting to guide morons like us out of their little town, and while all this was going on, the fires (there were 3 of them altogether) were creeping closer and closer. Our chances of reaching home that night were getting smaller by the minute. And our chances of becoming lunch were getting bigger.

There was a moment when we seemed to have a brilliant idea (we had about 14 of them by that time, none of which turned out be either brilliant, or ideas) and we drove off the beaten path, up into a residential area. I’m not sure if we thought we were privy to some secret information not even the fireman were had, or if it was just the fact that we were both starving to death by then and were crazed with hunger. But on we drove.

As we approached the top of the hill, about 50 feet away from us were the most enormous red and purple flames I’d ever seen in my life. We had driven directly into the Towering Inferno. It was like sticking your head into a pit fire. I’d never seen anything like it. Massive flames shooting out over the top of a hill. And the truly miraculous thing was seeing the scattered fireman walking alongside of this monster with hoses in their hands. It was like watching 8 David’s against 49 Goliaths.

We turned the car around.

Quickly.

We then pulled over one last time, caught our breath, and studied the map intensely. We finally found a road that had no name, and decided to take that one to the tip of the freeway that was closed. If we could beat the fire to the top, we might make it home without singeing our toenails.

“Look at all these people.” Chrisanne remarked. “Where are they going?” she asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie.”

We then looked around at the cars. Piled with children, TV’s, carpets, bags of food, clothing, everyone yanked from their homes in the middle of the night on a Saturday and heading out of town to who knows where. Their entire Saturday night was to be spent wondering if the things they left behind would eventually survive. Or if they were to come home to nothing.

I heard on the radio about a woman who had a newborn at home, and was pregnant with her second child. They had just finished the nursery. They left with the baby, the dog, some food, and one photo album they kept their wedding pictures in. The next day when they were allowed to come back home, there was nothing left but ashes and one small rocking chair.

The rocking chair was completely fine. It hadn’t been touched.

On we drove.

We passed by the families, thinking to ourselves, Thank God.

Thank God.

We were lost…these people were displaced. There was a huge difference.

We finally made it home about 6 hours later. Exhausted, confused, sad, a bit frightened, and truly terrified for the people still wandering around the one road out of town. Although the fires are contained now, and there’s less chance of them spreading, I still have visions of that mother holding her baby and walking around the black, charred rubble that used to be her home. As much as we complained we escaped the real danger.

We watched the TV intently that night. I never did see that mother, and I searched the entire next day on the radio to hear some news about her. Nothing. I guess there were too many stories that night. Too many tragedies and too many ashes to sift through. I choose to believe she and her new family are going to rebuild. And the new nursery will be even better than the old one. She’ll take the rocking chair and create the new world from that. From that one thing that survived. That made it through without s scratch.

As for us, we were reminded that it’s never as bad as it seems, really. And if we look behind us and stay calm, we, as a team, do pretty well.

I also learned how to re program Maggie’s voice. For some reason, she’s annoying the hell out of me. She now sounds like John Gielgud.