Fourth 24 Hours, June 29, 2015 -- June 30, 2015: Red Trees In Southern California -- Part II

So, I guess this is the transition. The previous entries covered the 24-hour periods from 7:00 p.m. the previous night to 7:00 p.m. the day of posting. Now that we have arrived in California, the 24-hour periods begin at 7:00 a.m. and carry through to the next morning.

As noted in the previous post, we arrived safely in San Pedro last night at almost exactly 8:00 p.m. The trip was uneventful in terms of any problems.

My first order of the day, of course, was Starbucks, 6:30 a.m. to catch up on the Bakken. May, Arianna, and Olivia are still in bed. I told them to call me when they were up and ready for breakfast.

The Starbucks near May's home is incredibly busy. In addition to what everyone imagines Starbucks to be, it is also now the new "DQ" (Dairy Queen) for children and pre-teens in the evening (I was here last night).

In Texas, Starbucks is the new "DQ" for for teens, not as many pre-teens and children visiting Starbucks in Texas as there are here in sunny California.

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Brown Lawns and Dying Trees

 

The lawns are turning brown. May's lawn is still one of the greener lawns. Because no one lives in her house most of the year, she has more water for the lawn.

I think once the trees start dying, folks are going to be alarmed at the rationing. It's one thing for grass to die and come back quickly, but once the trees start dying. And it will probably happen quickly. Once trees become stressed, subject to disease and pests.

From The Los Angeles Times back in May: drought kills 12 million trees in California's national forests.

Rangers in the San Bernardino National Forest call them “red trees.”

Instead of the typical deep green color, large swaths of pine trees now don hues of death, their dehydrated needles turning brown and burnt-red because of the state’s worsening drought.

“Unlike back East, where you have fall colors, here it’s because the trees are dying,” said John Miller, a spokesman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

Years of extremely dry conditions are taking a heavy toll on forest lands across California and heightening the fire risk as summer approaches.

“The situation is incendiary,” William Patzert, a climatologist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told The Times recently. “The national forest is stressed out.”

That is amazing. Yesterday, while driving through San Bernardino County, Arianna noticed the "red trees." We did not know what she was talking about.

And in the same newspaper, May 8, 2015: die-off of millions of California trees concentrated in Sierra Nevada.

That was exactly where we were: in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We knew that because Olivia and Arianna were telling us why California and Nevada were shaped the way they were. California, prior to statehood, moved the state line east to include the entire Sierra Nevada for the gold.

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Plans

We plan to be in the ocean later this afternoon and then dinner with Flavio and Cindy.

We have no plans to go to the beach over the 4-day July 4th weekend. The beaches will be packed.