Extremes...

Things can change in a matter of minutes. I received a text from a friend in a nearby town, 38 miles away, who informed me that the town had just issued water restrictions and closed their bulk water station. Why would a town refuse water to it's own town's people who are not on city water and do not have wells. Are these not their most needy consumers? We have been busy with the dogs and chickens, so we put off keeping our cistern full. We decided that we had put it off long enough and headed to town.

This, unannounced to us, was right in the middle of a town full of panicked people fleeing from a fire that was and is still out of control. There were scores of people in line at every gas pump in town. The strangest thing I saw was people sitting at gas pumps that were out of gas. They were in shock or something.

I love this Allstate commercial

It was total mayhem. We were also trying to find a tool for our truck that releases water out of the fuel filter. A must have item when you have a diesel truck. You could not get around town safely. The main highway had been closed heading East and still is closed due to this fire. After checking a few places for fuel and the tool I was starting to feel anxious. Unsure whether or not we could get fuel in another town we headed towards home. We would have filled up in the previous town but, a large RV pulling a trailer was trying to pull into a station that it could not get into had half of the highway blocked, so we continued on to the next town.

We had no idea what was going on until we were in the middle of it. We were out of options. Normally, we would have had plenty of fuel, but we did not want to stop in the middle of the night to get it on our way home from our last business trip. We will not make that mistake again. Number One wanted some chips from the grocery store, so we stopped to pick some up. They had one loaf of bread, no chips and the milk was nearly gone. He ended up with some off brand of cheese curls. Tasteless to say the least.

We finally fueled up after a long line of vehicles at a store that only had one entrance in and out. Some people are not so bright in panic mode. They blocked the only way out, so there was gridlock. They could not move forward nor backwards. We were trapped. We finally were able to escape our gas station prison, get some water and headed home. We got one more tank of water and called it a night. It was 9 pm and we still had not had anything to eat since breakfast, except tasteless cheese curls. We had a large thermos of cold water and I'm sure that was more than most people had.

We saw a vehicle in distress with a horse trailer behind it, so Number One went to see if he could be of assistance. There was a young lady inside who told us that we were the only one's who stopped. Her husband walked the four miles back home to get a second vehicle. They only needed a jump. Unfortunately, he took the keys. They had evacuated all their horses that morning and were on their way back home to wait and see if they needed to flee. We re-learned valuable lessons, keep your tanks full, keep emergency supplies in your vehicle and know what's going on around you...

This is our first experience with wildfires so close to home. God help us. Our tank is full and we are ready to evacuate. We are currently not under any threat, but we are ready to leave at a moments notice. Dogs and documents in hand. Please pray for God to bring the rains. We are in a desperate situation here. Pray for the safety of those in harm's way. Thank you and God bless....