California Hot Springs in Tulare County, up in Sequoia National Forest, it's about equal distance between Visalia and Bakersfield in the mountains east of there. The "town" is a post office and California Hot Springs Resort and that's it. All told there are 200 residents spread out in the little community that are ranchers and retired people and people who commute to Visalia, Porterville and Bakersfield and other places to work. Folks from LA like to come up and have cabins and vacation homes up there. We had a home up there for 13 years, we moved up there when my husband became the resident deputy for a couple of years. The night the trees came down it had rained heavy all day and then changed to snow, the weight of the snow I think was the last straw, they sounded like cannons going off as they fell. The next day I went for a walk with the dog through the woods and the roots of those trees were 10+' tall and more where they broke off out of the ground, unbelievable, they lay like match sticks, huge match sticks. If you like camping there's a really nice campground for RV's or tents a couple of miles below the Resort to stay at with a creek running by it. There is also an RV park across the street from the Resort but it's very basic. The Resort is is an old building with alot of history that has a giant swimming pool that they pipe the hot springs water into that they hold the water rights to and have year round swimming in with two hot tubs. They do charge to go swimming too, it's a business. The water comes in at 130 degrees and they cool it down to swimming temp, it's wonderful water. In the winter they keep it warmer and in the summer a little cooler. Inside the Resort is a deli, a gift shop and a little grocery store. They used to bottle and sell the water. About 20 miles up, I believe that's the distance, is where the Trail of 100 Giants is where President Clinton came and declared it a National Monument several years ago. My husband was there and part of the entourage that day. We sold his extra presidential pin of the day on E-Bay:) I did get nice gentle rain soaking in, I've been out to pull weeds twice now. Yesterday and today, they come up out of the clay better with a little water on them:) Course I'm gong to get alot more now, but that's ok, my plants and bulbs are all cheering too, I'm getting a bunch of them poking their little noses out now. Yea, after all the brown, some green! Leslie

figsin7b: I used to go to Sequoia when I lived in the San Fernando Valley--closest one, as I recall, to the Valley. General Sherman tree is there--the largest living thing on Earth. Some trees are taller, but no other has the volume of mass as General Sherman. Don't know if you'll find yourself in the San Francisco area, but if you do, check out the gargantuan fig trees at Alcatraz. Boat leaves from Pier 40 or 41, as I recall, every half hour, to Alcatraz. Pier 39 has been taken over by Sea Lions, and they hoist themselves up on the pier and lie about bellowing, shoving their weight around,and smelling up the place--to the tourists' delight, who can't seem to take enough pictures. If you're interested in Figs--and history--I wouldn't dream of going to Ca and not checking out the SPANISH MISSIONS, 21 of them dotted throughout the state, mostly along El Camino Real (some more, inland) from San Francisco, southward. You know the story of the old Spanish Missions,no doubt--many of the California Figs (and other fruit trees) originated at these missions. I lived a few blocks from San Fernando Mission, at Sepulveda Boulevard and San Fernando Mission (or San Fernando Mission Boulevard off the San Diego Freeway), in the northern San Fernando Valley. Used to also go to Mission San Gabriel, in the L.A. area, and both these missions had profuse Fig trees, 30 years ago. The central San Fernando Valley runs northward up the San Diego Freeway, from the junction of the Ventura Freeway and the San Diego Freeway. The off ramps proceeding north on the San Diego Freeway from that junction are Burbank Boulevard, Victory Boulevard, Van Owen, Sherman Way, Roscoe Boulevard (home of Budweiser Brewery, west), Nordhoff, Devonshire, San Fernando Mission Boulevard (get of there and go a mile East), and Rinaldi Boulevard at the northern end of the Valley. You can get off at any one of these offramps, and drive the suburban neighborhoods (particularly from Devonshire, north) and find Fig trees in every 4th yard, or so--if things remain as they did 20 years ago. On your way back south on the San Diego Freeway, take the Ventura Freeway west about 10 miles toward Ventura (east goes to L.A.), and take the Las Virgenes Canyon exit, south toward Malibu. That's actually Malibu Canyon to the locals, and you'll end up in Malibu, overlooking the Pacific Ocean (and Pepperdine University). After checking out Malibu, go south on El Camino Real and look about Santa Monica, and check out the Santa Monica pier--then a little further south to Venice--the Venice boardwalk and Muscle Beach, where Arnold used to work out before he ended up in the Governor's mansion. Retrace your path back north on Malibu (Las Virgenes) Canyon Road, east on the Ventura Freeway back to the San Diego Freeway, and head south. You'll pass LAX Los Angeles International Airport) in Inglewood, Long Beach (where the Queen Mary is now located) and the Port of Los Angeles, then keep booking south. Of course you know where you'll end up proceeding South on the San Diego Freeway. Don't forget to mark the Missions on your map as you travel south--Figs should abound. There: that ought to keep you busy for awhile, and you should see Fig trees all along your journey.

A number of years ago we did the out-and-back Narrows hike in late May or early June (around Memorial Day). Water was moving but current not too strong. It was beautiful but seemed there were a lot of folks out that day and I would like to do the hike again without seeing quite so many people. Same trip it snowed at Bryce Canyon. We stayed at Flanigan's outside of Zion and I would stay there again. There very well might be nicer places but budget was a big factor in our choice of lodging on that trip.

>>similar comments as to fire risk during drought years because the grass/weeds/underbrush had become tinder dry. I'm not sure which is right, is risk higher after dry winters or after wet ones? - Elmer F.>> As far as I know it's held that the risk is slightly higher after wet winters because it encourages new green growth in the hills that simply dies when summer comes and the rains stop. In a Mediterranean climate native plants go mostly dormant in summer. The other six Mediterranean regions of the world share our pattern of wet winters and dry, high fire danger summers. One of the comments my niece made when she visited us for the first time, in a July or August, was "Wow, I thought CA was green all the time! How come everything's brown and dried up?" Being from Chicago, everything IS green in the summer, LOL, so she was puzzled by endless hills with nothing but dead grass and a few scattered stands of evergreen bushes/trees. The danger in dry winters is not so much an occasional dry year, but when there's an entire succession of them as there has been during our last drought. It stresses the evergreens and makes them very vulnerable to bark borer beetles (there's a variety of different ones). Thus, photos of the Sierras around Tahoe and Hwy 80 show a terrifying number of dead trees after 7 yrs of drought. When a fire starts up there - which is inevitable, it's part of the ecosystem - it may well dwarf anything we've seen in the Wine Country. There is simply no way for CalFire to fight a major firestorm when it's inside impassible canyons and chasms. All they can do is pick defensible spots and try to hold them to minimize loss of life and structural damage. Getting back to the Wine Country fires, SF Chronicle had this photo on a slideshow today, by Paul Chan/Chronicle: