Wow. I used to live just south of where the fire is, up in the hills over Aptos. (If you search on "Aptos View Road, Aptos, California" in Apple Maps, it drops a pin on the road just a mile or so from where the house is.)
Our property line was the NIsene Marks State Park ... part of Loma Prieta. The epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta quake was a bare couple of miles away at most. By that time, I'd moved to San Francisco and weathered out the quake there in relative safety. But my dear friend Virginia Marks, the owner of the Aptos house, was still living there. I remember getting down to the house for a visit after the quake and feeling nearly constant tiny tremblors tick-ticking through the flooring. Ginny had spent two nights sleeping in the truck in a small open clearing nearby, fearing the trees would come down on the house. A wildfire is FAR scarier. :-| G ... I remember the house and the wonderful time I lived there and was part of the Marks family there as if it were yesterday. It was, in reality, 1981 to 1983 that I lived there. But I visited often—all holidays, whenever I could get away from JPL in SoCal, Molecular Design in San Leandro, and Apple in Cupertino—for many years afterwards. I will never forget the quiet beauty of the place and the extraordinary kindness and love afforded by John and Virginia Marks, and their large, rambling family. John died in 1986 while I was traveling for JPL, and Virginia survived him until 2002. After that the house was sold and that wonderful retreat into the woods at the top of Nisene Marks Park was lost to me. Remembering all the wonderful times we had together in the little house on the mountain brings tears to my eyes. I miss you, Ginny and John. To think that house might be destroyed is so terribly sad. ... :-( John's son Steven and his family live near me in Santa Clara now. I'll have to call them. > On Sep 28, 2016, at 11:54 AM, John Francis <jo...@panix.com> wrote: > > > As Larry mentioned in an earlier post, It's a bit closer to where I live > than it is to Larry's house. > > This was taken late yesterday afternoon: > > http://panix.com/~johnf/temp/LomaFire.jpg > > Here's another shot taken about five minutes earlier, showing a detail > of the mountain peak to the right (whick I think may be Loma Prieta of > 1989 earthquake fame): > > http://panix.com/~johnf/temp/LomaFireDetail.jpg > > Ten minutes earlier still that plume of smoke hadn't even been there; > just the first little wisps of smoke on this side of the hill. > > Loma Prieta is about ten miles from where I took those photographs; > my house is about 1.5 miles closer to the fire (just about straight > ahead in the main photograph, this side of the brown hillside that > you can see between the trees). There's a pretty wide flat valley > just beyond those brown hills, though, and it's mostly ranchland, > so it's not likely that we're going to have any real problems. > > Technical stuff - the first shot was taken with the 60-250 all the > way at the wide end (on a K-5); the detail shot was taken with the > same lens at the other end of the zoom range, this time also using > the HD1.4x adapter I just recently accquired from Stan Halpin. > > There's also a 1920x1200 version of the original shot here: > > http://panix.com/~johnf/temp/LomaFireHD.jpg > > > >> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 09:28:55AM -0400, ann sanfedele wrote: >> whats more important is how far the fire has spread - hope you can breathe >> and it doesn't get any closer to you , Larry >> >> ann >> >> >>> On 9/27/2016 10:05 PM, Larry Colen wrote: >>> I don't know how far news has spread, but there's a pretty big fire >>> going in the Santa Cruz Mountains. >>> >>> http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/26/loma-fire-map-santa-cruz-mountains/ >>> >>> >>> http://www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents/incidentdetails/Index/1457 >>> >>> It's currently at 2200 acres and 10% containment. Someone got an >>> awesome photo of it from the Santa Cruz Pier last night, with the >>> boardwalk lit up in the foreground. Unfortunately, that wasn't me. >>> -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
