Cajon pass fire along the freeway on our way to California last Friday

We are so grateful that we ended up leaving late on Friday the 17th for our final trip out to Lego Land and the beach for the summer. We had two apts that morning. One for Spencer with his metabolic specialist and one for Grant. We ended up getting on the road about 12 and narrowly missed this terrible fire that jumped the freeway and burned several cars. You can read more about it here.  Tyler saw the fire in the distance and we didn't think much of it till we got closer and saw how dramatic and big the smoke was and the flames near the ground. Never did we realize we might be in danger or that there were any cars affected. It was a pretty incredible sight. The pictures just don't do it justice. The colors formed from the flames and the smoke against a sunny sky is actually really beautiful. It was sad at the same time though knowing how much damage was being caused.

We were finally diverted after an hour or so of very slow traffic. We were sent along some back roads to another connection point to the 115 past the road closure. We all had to use the bathroom pretty bad and joked about stopping off at someones house. The traffic was moving really slow around a pretty remote and hilly area.  Eventually we came to a little country store and were able to use the restroom. I so wished I would have taken a picture. There was a giant stretch limo suv in the parking lot and a long line of people from all different walks of life and nationalities waiting to use a gross back of the store employee restroom. The store smelled like bug spray and reminded me of something I would see in South Dakota. I wanted to take some time to look around but we were trying to make it to our hotel at a decent hour.

We listened to really funny and seemingly exaggerated radio reports from local stores claiming chaos in the parking lots. With people drinking, "bickering" stealing parking spots and even stealing merchandise. It seemed pretty funny to us at the time but I am sure it wasn't funny for those experiencing it.

I think it ended up taking us 9 hours to get from Las Vegas to Anneheim. The kids handled it really well and we had plenty of food and water in the car to keep us from getting too hungry. It turned out to be a really nice time to talk, listen to music and for Grant to listen to Harry potter on the ipod while Spencer it to himself.