Thank you, Sammy. Much appreciated. I'm glad your daughter has recovered well. I wish you could see California in good times. We in El Lay have it about as bad, but, barring any more outrageous water main breaks, supposedly have up to two years of water "in storage". Who knows how much of that has been wasted in the latest round of ancient infrastructure failures? Kim

Yes -- THANK you Sammy. I fear that, sometimes, we sound pretty whiney ... but really, this long drought is hard to swallow. It's all the worse for the predictions that we may now only be in the initial stages of a very, very long drought.

It's changing our way of life -- and it has certainly changed the way I look at a great many things.

Water running down the street to a storm drain -- Overly fed/watered lush green lawns -- I grieve when I think of the waste.

Jeri

I hope Balboa Park looks as we last saw it. We love San Diego. It's a wonderful place to visit. We also drove up to Julian in the mountains above San Diego with a map of the old roses there. That was great fun. You would be surprised at how many lovely rose people live in that area.

Sammy, it's too bad that you had to see SD in this drought. My parents lived in San Diego for a number of years, and I visited them often - I always marveled at the beautiful plants and flowers, especially in neighborhoods that were fairly near to the ocean. But, of course, San Diego was always basically a desert next to an ocean - an ideal climate for growing succulents, which were magnificent.

I myself live in Sacramento, and yes, we are near the fires. It's a bad year, as all the vegetation in the foothills and the mountains is so dry. And, while it's true that drought years (like earthquakes) are part of living in California, many of us are feeling that this drought cycle could be a long one. Some people have plowed up their front lawns and put in drought-tolerant plants. We who love roses are hoping that we can baby them through - many of the roses in the Old City Cemetery Rose Garden have come from places in the foothills where they survived on their own without anyone caring for them for years, so we know that they are survivors!

I hope that you can visit San Diego later on under happier circumstances. And I'm glad your daughter is OK!

There are (were?) a number of growers in the San Diego area raising cut flowers. It's a wonderful climate for flowers. They grow things that my area in Orange County is just slightly too hot to get the best performance. Balboa Park is lovely and has beauty all around and wonderful lotus and lily ponds and an impressive shade house. I'm sorry that plants have to suffer when the drought comes. Especially the old trees. My grass is dead now. I let it go and put down wood mulch to give the remaining water to the roses.

I live about 25 miles inland from San Diego and haven't seen the central part of it for some years since my stepdaughter and family live in the suburbs there, and frankly I'd rather keep my memories of when it was lush and green. We may have a few years in the future with what we would call normal winter rains here, but in between the projection is longer and drier summers, scant winter rain and greater heat. It's grim, but then so is the outlook for the rest of the world, and I doubt that many of us are really prepared for the reality of it.

Ingrid