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| I'm not quite sure why we're smiling! |
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Mom came down the weekend before last to have a look at what is left of her home. There wasn't really much to show her (of what was left). The whole interior suffered damage - the city fire investigator called it 90% uninhabitable, which I suppose means we could camp out in the garage if it had plumbing! She was very taken aback, seeing it for herself. One just can't realize the whole scope of the mess from looking at photographs; it certainly makes it 'real' seeing it in person.
Our condo board has finally started the ball rolling to get us our house back. The association's insurance is responsible for rebuilding the structure (our insurance covers the paint 'in') so they've started asking for contractor's bids on the project. Then the bids have to be analyzed, a contractor chosen, engineering & architectural plans drawn up, city permitting obtained, all before any work can actually begin. I think we're looking at at least two months before "the first nail is hammered", as my uncle says. Then many, many more months before we can move back in.
In the meantime I've been scouring over our damage & loss estimate, querying the insurance company on different items; arranged for a Cleaning & Restoration company to come and remove everything from our garage for cleaning, "de-smoking", and storage; and we've found a rental condo and signed a lease for October to January so at least we'll have somewhere to live this fall.
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| that's Coachella Valley in the distance |
The group hiking is minimal here due to the heat and the lack of hike leaders. Although pre-dawn temperatures are lovely, it warms up very quickly once the sun rise. It's been pretty consistently in the high 90's - 105F the last couple of weeks, so I've only hiked 4x so far - all at higher elevations such as Idyllwild and Mt. San Jacinto. This past Wednesday an informal group of 7 of us climbed from the aerial tramway on Mt. San Jacinto up to it's peak: 8 miles and 2300' elevation. Normally it's about 11miles but our leader decided the direct, off-trail route would be shorter and more challenging! Technically it shouldn't have been hard but the thinner air at 10,000' sure gets the lungs a-pumping. I'm going to give it another try tomorrow, but we're sticking to the path this time!
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| it's cooler at 10,834 |
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| up, we waded thru snow at the top! |
