Well, this is going to be a rambling post. I'm just warning you all right now. This morning for my ride, I decided to do two climbs in Sierra Madre, just 'cuz I'm crazy like that. The first climb was up to the dam on Woodland Drive. Once I got past Mary's Market and Cafe, I noticed the road became very dusty. I hoped I wasn't riding into a whole bunch of construction. But then I remembered that it had rained pretty hard for three days while I was in Chicago (no rain in Chicago, go figure), and I had already seen the rockslide damage on my other rides this week. And adding to the runoff was the fact that the scorched earth from the recent fire wasn't going to be soaking up any of that water either. So, I just hoped I wasn't slipping and sliding on my way down.
Flood control: basically a huge gutter...
As you can make out in the picture above, the fire damage pretty much meets right up with the dam, and there are houses packed into the little canyon. This really is how close that fire got to all those Sierra Madre homes. As I made my way across Sierra Madre to the next climb, I noticed some deer statues on someone's front lawn. My next thought was how big those three statues were of a buck, a doe, and a juvenile. As I got closer, I thought, "whoa, those are really big statues." And as I came up to the deer ensemble, the buck statue, while chewing on something, turned to inspect me. Gah! Those were real mule deer! The burn had made the local wildlife forage a little more down the mountain side. As I passed by the deer family, I remarked to the buck, "That's a whole lotta deer!" He just looked at me and continued to chew on whatever he had found in that front yard. I expect that resident's trees aren't going to be finding any bark left on his trees. Mind you, seeing that "statue" move was not as shocking as passing a skunk at 4:30 in the morning, and having it hiss at you. I didn't know skunks could make that sound. *shudder*
