Relay walking, burned homes and strange weather

Let me start by saying yesterday was the most emotionally draining day I have had in I don't know how long. It started in the morning, before I even left the house. John called me in to see the newest fire burning in Santa Cruz. Oh crap, here we go again. someone drove along the highway and lit fires along the way. so many homes burned. It was already hot and dry. I called one of my sisters to find out if anyone was in danger. I finally got hold of a sister and she told me the fires were burning away from our family. this made me feel a little better, although i still felt bad for those families. So i took off for the relay walk, it was still early, maybe i could help with something and i wanted to see opening ceremonies.

I got to the field and our team was setting up a tent to put over the chips n food that was brought. I had no idea how it was supposed to set up. I really didn't do a whole lot, i think i was more in the way than anything. after that was set up, i took a walk around the field to check out the booths. they are so creative. there was a special tent set up this year to participate in a special long term cancer research study. I later joined in on that study. not a whole lot was really going on with me, i just couldn't get into the excitement of it yesterday. not like last year. but i kept trying.

So when the cancer study tent opened, i went down, enrolled, gave them four vials of my special blood and left. they had a quota they could reach for the day, and in the end, they went over by 16 people and had to start turning people away. So as I left, i got a call from one of my santa cruz sisters. the fire from up in paragraph one, she thought had burned all three of the homes on another sisters property. the family was all at her house swimming, so they were all safe, but the homes were gone. its a good thing that crying was normal yesterday, cus i was bawling. i called john n told him what i was just told and I was sobbing. I later got a call telling me only one of the homes burned, not all of them and two other buildings. by the way, this was arson.

now, onto the strange weather. the day was supposed to get to 108 yesterday and I'm sure it did. the morning started out freaking hot. there was supposed to be storms in the mountains, but no relief for us down below. hah, and again i say HAH! about noon, the clouds started rolling in. they got darker n darker. there was lightening, thunder and sprinkles of rain. it felt so good to cool off. then the winds came up, and up and up. if you looked at the pics i posted, you will see some guys holding the stakes of the awning, that is because the wind picked the whole thing up and blew it completely away. these guys came and put it back together again. no sooner did it blow away, than they were there. I don't even know where they came from, i do, but it was like they just appeared. like super hero's. we gave them boxes of chips as thank you gifts.

ok, i may write some other stuff later on. this is getting kinda lengthy though so I will stop here. go check out he pics i posted. see ya all later.