Do You Smell That???

I left work Thursday afternoon, and noticed I had 4 messages on my cell phone. Feeling popular I dialed my voice mail to see what was up, only to see Jeanne beeping in. I thought that was odd, since she knew I was at work, but whatever. So I pick up only to hear my normally hyper, high pitched, best friends' voice come out in a very slow methodical drawl. "Where is the boy?" She asked. "With his aunt why?" "You need to call her, and see where they are. There is a big fire, and they're evacuating us." "What???" I'm laughing thinking yeah, whatever. "No, seriously, there's a fire. It's big. You can see flames from the business loop." By this time I walk outside my hospital 30 miles away, and as I step out the door I see and smell smoke. I look up and say something along the lines of "Holy Crap." I get in the car and start driving home, and by the time I hit the next town (About 20 miles north of my town) I see ash falling from the sky. I'm driving through falling ash and smoke. The closer to my town I get the more ash starts to fall. Then the x calls.

"I'm standing in your house." he says "I have the boy. There are police men 3 houses down, and I have about 5 minutes. What do you want?"

I start to panic a little. "I don't know. I can't think. I'm 20 minutes away. OHHH I have money hidden, get my money. The clothes in the laundry room are clean, grab the clothes so The Boy has something to wear. SCHOOL BOOKS!!!! Finals are this week, grab my school books."

"I have all your photo albums, can't get the year books, I grabbed the home videos and I'm taking stuff off the walls. Meet me at my house."

"Ok" I say, and I drive like mad. I ended up passing about 25 cars by driving on the shoulder of the road, only to get up to the cop and yell "CHASE!!!!! I don't know exactly where the boy is, but I need to get to him. I think he's at the x's I need to go" and I blow past his little barricade. (Poor guy. I used to work with him when he was a punk sandwich artist at Subway, so I just did my thing. lol Then I got into a fight with a state trooper, but I blew past him too. (Come to think of it... I'm kinda surprised I'm not in the big house right now! lol) Anyway I start to drive to the X's and I have to pass my neighborhood as I'm going to his. I look and all I can see is smoke. I can't make out any of the houses, and I can see flashing lights, but I can't see any fire trucks. It's nothing but smoke, and the smell.... the smell of campfire, that ordinarily I'd love, but at that moment it just made my stomach turn. I get to the x's grab the boy, throw him in the car and take off. I ended up in Frederic at a friends house. I had no idea where I was on my way there. The CO wouldn't let me get back into town, I had to go west to go east to go north... I had no clue where I was. I just drove down this crazy road to nowhere, I had no signal, and I was like where the heck am I? I manged to get to my friends though and camp there for the night. Her husband is a fire fighter so we listened to the scanner all night and I could hear them yelling about Madsen's Cabins, and structure damage, etc etc. Those cabins are right at the entrance to my subdivision. It was surreal, it was crazy, and I can't believe it happened. The fire itself came withing 100 yards of my subdivision. I honestly and completely thought when I left for Sandras that I would not be returning to my home EVER.

Crazy stuff. Thankfully all is well. though to drive down 75 it is amazing that my whole town didn't go up in smoke. The fire came right up to the cement at the Admiral Gas Station. That's the gas station right off the exit in town. It was right behind the Holiday Inn (Ramada) it was right there. Hanging out in town, trying to burn this place down. It was single handily the most Bizzar-o thing I've ever experienced.

Here's some of the pics off the tv7-4 website. You'll notice how close it came to taking out my source of income. The BIG K!!!! No fire is going to stop the Mart though. I'm showing up in a few hours to work my butt off yet again. Until then I need to unpack the car I've been living out of for the past 2 days. (I had to go get clean undies for the boy from the car today) lol. and I need to pick up this house that looks like a tornado came through. While I appreciate the x's willingness to salvage all things sentimental.... it would of been nice if he would of made a little less of a mess! And perhaps vacuumed on his way out. Maybe even did a little dusting. Sheeesh. So thoughtless! lol.

Oh... and I need to make that phone call to get renters insurance. Yeah... that's tops on my list now! So.... how was your week???? lol




The Big K standing strong in the face of adversity

Standing in the Big K parking lot looking towards 75 south. (That's Kentucky Fried Chicken right there with the red roof. It used to be Hardee's when I worked there, years and years ago!)

The gas station where you get off the freeway and come into town. This is the one where the ground is black and charred right up to the pavement.

The view from far away. It looked like a bomb went off. Just one HUGE mushroom cloud.