I'm stuck in Gorman
 

Some of my family decided to make a spur of the moment trip to Sequoia NP. I took yesterday and today off work, and Bill and I drove up in the Mini to join them. We had planned to drive back this evening.

The I5 is closed. All southbound traffic is being diverted on to the 138 towards Palmdale and the 14. We got stuck in that mess and went all of 2 miles in 1 hour and 10 minutes.... So, we turned around and found the 2nd to the last room in the only hotel in Gorman(we got here at 8:45). There is no long distance phone service out of town (but I was able to connect to earthlink via dial-up - go figure) So I don't know if the rest of my family that were headed back to OC got through, or if I'll be able to call work tomorrow morning and let them know I may not be in!

Yikes!

As I read this, I am listening to the news reports on the fire.

I hope all works out!

Drove through the fire on Sunday evening. It wasn't threatening I-5 at that point but was all over in the hills above Castaic and then around Pyramid Lake.

I know it sucks if you live there but it was very pretty to drive through at night.

Enjoy Gorman, I've always wanted to stop there just to eat at the Sizzler. But never have.

2 lanes south bound reopened around 11-11:30ish, but our local news is warning people to be prepared for more closures. I know it was having a lot of trouble all day Monday and yesterday, sporadic closures, but they only seemed to be affecting the Southbound side. Last night was the first I had heard about Northbound being affected.

You always get stuck in the most, uh, "interesting" places.

I can think of several adjectives to describe Gorman, but "interesting" is not one of them.

We just got home about 45 minutes ago. The 5 is down to 2 lanes in either direction. We passed several spots where the fire had come right up to the freeway. We saw a charred freeway sign lying on the ground, its wooden support burned away.

Yikes! Good thing they closed the freeway.

My car has a fine layer of ash all over it, and the sun was blood red through the smoke all day long. With the 5 closed, a lot of people were diverting off the 5 onto the Old Road (which runs alongside the 5 through Santa Clarita) which, conviently, is the road I take to school everyday, so there has been tons of traffic. Rumor is that if the fire gets any closer to Castaic (or jumps the 5), it will spread even faster, and school will probably have to close (about 75% of our student population is from Castaic).

I hate fires.

Our news (in Bakersfield) said that if it jumped I5 it would threaten a lot of houses. When it first started they said they were just going to let it burn itself out since it wasn't threatening anything.

I got stuck in Needles once. Car broke down. About 1975, was that an interesting town, NOT! And not much better now, I bet.