It was a rather hazy Thursday when Brittney and i were super-gluing fuzy fabric to the seats of her car. My parent's were in our kitchen listening to the AM radio about the fire, and I was in the living room cutting fabric when the doorbell rang.
Despite the sign on my door that says, "ring doorbell, win a cat," the visitor refused his prize. It was Ciaran, and he came to present his apologies for our nonsensical little disagreement over the internet that morning. Our dispute was literally over absolutely nothing,so seeing him was an instant cure to the tension.
We all were cheerfully chatting in the driveway when my dad came out on the porch. The radio claimed Brittney's street to be prepared for evacuation.
Brittney is not one to easily panic--her topics she chooses to panic about are oddly selective, but she frantically packed her things from my house and rapidly pulled out of my driveway in a matter of short minutes.
Unlike Brittney, Ciaran is one to panic over everything. After my father suggested we pack our belongings just in case we had to evacuate as well, Ciaran and I took that as a cue to believe it was the end of our lives. By the time we drove to Ciaran's house to pack his belongings, we were convinced if we didn't leave town within the hour, the fire would consume the perimeter of the evacuation area and trap all of Paradises' citizens' lives.
So, despite my father's ominous command to drive back to the house that instant, we drove to the evacuation route and inched our way past the seemingly endless tall flames towards highway 70. We did not want to go to Chico. The traffic would be terrible, and since we were already out of Paradise, we wanted more of an adventure. We needed to go to the ocean.
Fort Bragg was closest.

In Marysville, we used a pay phone to call our parents. (I had lost my cellphone in the chaos). Naturally, my parents were infuriated. I was torn by moral attachment, yet the thrill of adventure took the best of me. I was eighteen after all, i could legally make my own decisions. Of course, Ciaran and I were terrified for the lives of our friends and family, but we knew there was nothing we could do for them if we stayed closer to the area. After watching a crazy hunched twitchy limping babbling drunk lady snort some crack at a street corner, we decided to keep driving up highway 20 to the coast.
Despite the fear, the journey was marvelous. It was already 7 o'clock at that time, and as the night crept across the sky, our sense of adventure and feeling of complete freedom crept into our faces. We listened to the B-52's and talked at highspeeds about nothing important. The large AMPM coffee we bought in Williams was a great asset to our laughter.
Due to stupid detours and snack-stops, we didn't get to the town until one in the morning. The emptiness was magical.
Seeing the ocean was as memorable as the last time I found myself on a beach with Ciaran. We made Gunther jokes and talked about star constellations; and spaced out at the waves crashing into the cliffs. Our selfishness was worth the stress from our parents.
We were completely amped up on caffeine still, so we spent most of the night running around the empty streets of what seemed like a friendly clean tourist town. We found it impossible to sleep in my cramped car. By morning, we discovered the truth; Fort Brag was actually Fort Fail.
When people started appearing after sunrise, we decided to drink some more coffee since we didn't sleep that night, and head home.
We used the pay phone to call our parents, and found out the roads back to Paradise were still blocked, and that's when the trip turned stupid.
To make a long story short, we spent the entire day looking for a cheap motel to sleep in since we were pretty much dead-exhausted. It was Friday the thirteenth, my car fell in a ditch, Ciaran was wearing a skirt so people looked at us weird which couldn;t have helped, and couldn't find anything cheap on the coast in the summer, so headed inland later that night and spent in Willits. (cable TV is so fun to make fun of).
At least prior to driving inland, we chilled at a lighthouse and climbed some rocks and found a cave. Oh, and even earlier that day, we went to a different beach and found a bunch of shells--- it was cool.
We went home the next day, got yelled at, but it was worth it. I learned a lot about trip planning. But really, the whole trip was stupid : )


the end.