Slide

I originally posted this on Facebook, and  wanted to share it here.  Santa Cruz, California certainly is not experiencing weather like the terrible snows on the East Coast, but we are having heavy rains here.  This is what I experienced on my drive home tonight:

I have lived in the mountains most of the time during my 30-odd years in Santa Cruz. I have seen a lot of landslides on the canyon roads, but nothing like the one I crept around tonight. Huge mass of wet soil, boulders and rocks, at least one uprooted bay tree, the main slide about the height of my car, and higher in places. Drove up to it, said "Hm. That's interesting. Maybe I should take the other road." Realized suddenly: that WAS the other road, or rather, used to be. There's nothing quite like inching one's car around a landslide that size, knowing that it's still quite unstable and the one-lane road you're on could suddenly become a no-lane road. The small "caution" sign" posted at the edge of the giant slide made me smile, ruefully: no kidding!