8:30pm – crystal clear and crisp evening. Received .4 inches of rain this afternoon, for a total for the week and the season of 5.9 inches. Yup, fire season is toast.

1:30pm – the lightning moved on, and all is quiet on the home front. I actually enjoy thunder and lightning when I can count to 5 between them. When it is almost simultaneous, not so much.

1:00pm – another one, right HERE. Okay, this is not fun, and I am turning off my electronics until it moves away.

12:57pm – Lightning and thunder just now, right smack on top of me! Dakota is shaking at my feet hiding under my desk. Oh, my!

Monday night, as I thought, I got 2 inches of rain. Tuesday night I received 2 and 1/2 inches of rain, but worse, the winds were pretty bad. As I thought, Plaskett was blocked. My neighbor and Rock Knocker got out early this morning and got it cleared. John started at the top, Rock Knocker started at the bottom, and they met in the middle at Turkey Flats where an entire tree toppled and blocked the road. Last night, I got a mere 1 inch, but more is on the way this morning.

I am in the process of changing over the links to the right, and I will also be uploading the photos for the header contest throughout the day. It won’t be made public until all 10 are up, hopefully by this afternoon.

Weather tomorrow for the Jade Festival is supposed to be clear, albeit cool, so dress in the usual Big Sur layers. I won’t be reporting live tomorrow, but perhaps on Saturday.

I had to leave this morning at 6 am – in the dark, in the rain with clouds sitting on top of me. The drive down was a nightmare, but I had to get Gideon to the vet for surgery.

By the time I hit the highway, the rain had stopped, and dawn was arriving. I’d also come out from under the clouds. I slid in the mud at least 1/2 a dozen times, but I made it.

The road from Jade Cove to Ragged Point had rocks in the north bound lane, many, many places. Cal-Trans was out on dawn patrol. Hit a major squall south of Cambria. I have to spend the day here in Morro Bay until he’s ready to pick up and Dakota gets her check up.

I couldn’t check my own gauge in the dark, while handling two dogs, but reports have come in of 1/2 inch in Big Sur Valley and an inch and a half at Esalen. Based on that, I probably got two inches.

Big Sur Kate got caught. I should have changed my links over from fire watch to storm watch. Will do that this evening. I did get the top 10 photos chosen, so I’ll start uploading them tonight to a draft so that they will be ready for voting sometime tomorrow.

Stay safe, out there, and let us know how you faired in the comments below.