The fires are mostly out now, the air is clear, the millionaires have all gone back to what's left of their homes. Hector and I fled for a few days to Palm Desert to stay at the JW Marriott there.

Before the fires we went for a few days to Portland, which I keep hearing is the new West Coast in place. Well, thank you, but I'll stay in Southern California. Oh, there's lots of nightlife and good restaurants. Art galleries, shopping, music venues. And they have better mountans than we do.

In fact, we took off one day to hike in Mt Hood National Forest. We drove for hours and the road kept getting smaller until finally it was about 4 feet wide and just dirt. So we got out, admired the view for a bit but then we began to notice that the ground was covered in little colored plastic tubes. Everywhere. Then it hit us. Shotgun shells. Thousands of them. As we looked around more we saw old beer bottles, condom wrappers, potato chip bags, all the signs of... the locals. I immediately thought of Deliverance. We had not passed a soul for many miles.

We couldn't find our trail so we just roamed around a bit, waiting for Freddy Kruger to jump out but he never did. As we left we did pass a pickup with a couple of hillbillies in it-- no doubt searching for us.

Back in town, I explored the Portland Japanese Garden while Hector worked. It's gorgeous, laid out on 5 hillside acres. We had some good food, did a lot of walking. Had dinner one night with Tere and Martin, in from LA for work.

Now, this week, I'm getting ready to leave for Puerto Rico. Mark, Arturo and I will meet Hector there on Saturday. We're staying a week, hurricanes be damned.