A Santa Barbara Christmas

Wow...what a fantastic Christmas with family in Santa Barbara!!! 

Maybe it felt especially sweet since even up to the day we left, I was fearful we would not be able to go given several potential issues. 

What kinds of issues?

As I mentioned in the previous post, I face planted into the sidewalk on Thursday, December 14.  My black eye  (or perhaps more accurately my purple, yellow, and magenta eye) got worse.

Monday, 12/18, before the blood began to pool in large amounts below the eye, but you get the idea

With mostly just a sore nose, a sore knee and lots of scrapes, I decided to ignore it.

The bigger issue was the Thomas Fire in southern Cal.  The fire started on December 4, miles to the east of Santa Barbara, but it kept creeping westward.  Then on Saturday, December16, it became a wind-driven monster on its western flank.  Nearly all day Saturday we helplessly watched live coverage on the Santa Barbara tv stations via the internet as the fire threatened homes in the region. 

Cal Fire Progression Map of the Thomas Fire (from Wikipedia) as of 12-25-17.  See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/2017_12_11-08.57.46.111-CST.jpg/1280px-2017_12_11-08.57.46.111-CST.jpg for a full size map.

Evacuations were ordered, including most of Montecito and parts of Santa Barbara, but the kids' home was not in the evacuation zone.  However, any further movement of the fire westward and they almost assuredly would need to evacuate.  Evacuation orders for their neighborhood are not to be taken lightly.  Most of their neighborhood, including their house, burned in 1990 as part of the Painted Cave Fire.  

Though not evacuating and still ten miles or more from the fire, they were feeling the effects from the severe smoke and soot.  Face masks were routinely needed while outside and HEPA filters helped the quality of air inside.  Even after we arrived days later, we spent very little time outside due to everything covered in soot and ash.

Note the soot and ash on the leaves of this plant, what I think is Angel's Trumpet

Even as as the wind died down on Saturday night, the fire was still very active and there was nothing to keep it from moving westward.  Fortunately the light winds lasted for several days, giving the fire fighters a chance to build fire breaks and dump water on the hot spots.  

The next big test of their containment efforts would be Wednesday night, December 20, into Thursday morning.  That was awful timing for us, if we needed to decide whether we could still go or not, since our plane left Thursday morning.  However, we crossed our fingers and continued preparations to leave, including adding N95 face masks to the stuff we were taking.

By the time we needed to leave for the airport on Thursday morning, we knew the fire lines had held so it seemed all was well.  Indeed, while we were in route, the evacuation orders were lifted.  It was still a monster sized fire, eventually becoming the largest California fire in modern history, but at least it was mostly in the back country and no longer a threat to homes in Santa Barbara.

Lots of blue sky and sunshine on a 70 degree day at DFW

The flight was uneventful.  Since we fly so infrequently, we feel pretty clueless about current airline and TSA requirements. That adds to the stress.  Fortunately it was a direct flight from DFW to SBA.  It was a beautiful day and we even lucked out with no one next to us, so the two of us could spread out over three seats.  Yea! 

It is always so much fun to visit with the kids.  In addition to preparing exquisite gourmet meal after gourmet meal, they did all of the Christmasy things like cookies.  Despite all of the extra hassles due to the fire, they had their tree up and decorated...much to the consternation of Byron, who was concerned about the "indoor bush".

Gwen making gingerbread men.

Much of their life revolves around their SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) activities.  Gwen is an expert on many (and I do mean MANY) medieval arts and crafts, as well as period clothing.

Paul continues working on his SCA brewing activities.  He was busy starting multiple batches of hard cider.(the beginning of a multi-month project). He is already an experienced brewer, well practiced in making many kinds of beer. 

Paul beginning the cider project. 

While we were there he began work on soapstone molds to make pewtar blanks.  The blanks will eventually be struck into pewtar coins.

Although probably less so than its public image, SCA is also about battle re-enactments and sword fighting.  That requires lots of training (hence Paul's current weight lifting program with kettle bell weights) and lots of specialized equipment.

Paul with chain mail and helmet

It was fascinating to learn the details of all of these many different projects.

But there is more. 

We had fun watching the many hummingbirds in their backyard.  One of the hummingbirds spent hours sitting in an avocado tree keeping watch.  He was quite territorial and was continually chasing the other hummingbirds that approached the feeder or even the backyard.   

Early one morning looking out the back.  The dot in the center of the red circle is the hummingbird sitting in his designated spot in the avocado tree.

But that was not the only thing to watch from their backyard. 

We are all geeks at heart in our family, so we were very anxious to see the launch of a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base.  The south end of Vandenberg, where this launch took place, is about 50 miles WNW of Paul and Gwen's house.  The rocket was expected to travel nearly due south, taking it out over the Pacific Ocean.

Lift off was scheduled for Friday, December 22 at 5:27 pm, which was about half an hour after sundown.  Although Paul and Gwen had seen multiple launches, including several at night, the Frog and I had never seen one.  I don't know what I expected, but what we saw was certainly different than anything that I had imagined.  

First of all, it was much larger and easier to see than I expected.  The initial first stage was a large orange fireball.  Unfortunately, I was so excited about seeing it, that I initially forgot to take pictures.  Then, as it went higher and further south, it arched across the sky in front of us.  It was easy to see the separation of the first and second stage. 

Falcon 9 rocket.  Bright object on the lower left (just above the tree) is the moon, I think. This does not truly capture how spectacular the launch was since it was just with my phone, but you do get a sense for how easy it was to see.

As it turned out, this particular launch was unusual even for those experienced in seeing such things.  Even though it was rapidly getting dark on the ground, since it was just after sunset the gases emitted by the rocket created a cloud which was still lit by the sun.  It made it unusually spectacular.   There was also lots of maneuvering around of the different components (different rocket stages?) in the sky, but I wasn't totally clear what I was seeing.

Gases shooting out and expanding around the rocket

The Frog did a rough calculation in his head as we were waiting for liftoff (once a physicist, always a physicist) that it would take 4-5 minutes for the sound of the liftoff to reach us.  Sure enough, just as the rocket was leaving our field of view and we were getting ready to go in, we began hearing a low rumble much like thunder.  It was definitely the sound of the rocket as it took off.
 
This article in Popular Science addresses why this launch looked so strange even to experienced observers.   This article, although listing the wrong date, does have lots of detailed info and additional pictures from the launch site.  I especially liked this reply in the comments of the second article to why this looked so unusual:

When the second stage engine fires, it's in a near vacuum, so the exhaust plume expands very widely (without significant air resistance to push it behind the vehicle). I recall seeing this many times, on Apollo and Shuttle launches, during second stage (for Apollo) or post-booster separation (for Shuttle), but images from near the launch site only capture the plume from behind. The huge teardrop shape is the appearance of the plume from a vantage well away from the launch point, where the side of the contrail and plume become visible -- and it's a viewpoint neither NASA or SpaceX has ever shown us.

Of course, this would be hard to capture anyway on a Canaveral flight, with an eastward launch over the Atlantic and the launch corridor cleared for safety (might be visible from Bermuda or the Bahamas). Polar orbit launches from Vandenberg, by contrast, fly southward near the California coast. Add to that, this launch climbing into sunlight just after sunset for southern California, and the clear weather, and you have the formula for a never-before-photographed, but very common phenomenon.

Seeing this was absolutely spectacular.  I am so glad we got to see it. 

It was hard to leave, because I know it will likely be a long time until I see Paul and Gwen again.  At least my Christmas cactus was in the Christmas spirit and was a bright addition to our return.

My Christmas cactus, which is at least 15 years old.  Great to see it blooming like this!

I was glad to see that my moving it to a location where it had more darkness in the evenings had encouraged it to bloom!  BTW, a new factoid I stumbled upon recently: according to Neil Sperry, Christmas cacti naturally grow suspended from tree trunks in the upper canopy of tropical rain forests of South America.  Who knew???!

Well, this turned into a much longer post than I had anticipated, but it was an eventful several days.  Most of all, it was so great to be with family for Christmas.  Thanks Paul and Gwen for putting up with us.  I truly had a very Merry Christmas.