A Sunday Drive and Power Company Rant

We don't go on Sunday drives often, but today we did. We started early with breakfast in town, then we headed west toward the rice fields. We discovered some teeny tiny towns (one had a population of 75 souls). We looked at the huge rice elevators and enjoyed the warm sunshine. After lunch, we continued to drive toward the flat mesas by the dam.

The California hillsides are covered in dry, yellow grass. "They say" the fire danger is high. To add to the equation, the local power company figured it is wise to shut down the power for the whole area when the winds are blowing. Yesterday we had a 14 hour power outage in order to be safe. I believe in being safe, but we did not have any wind.  

So, we are enjoying the dryness--hating the power company--and wondering when the power company will come up with a better solution than cutting power to tens of thousands of people every time the wind blows. Maybe they should have a town hall where we can offer them some better solutions apart from the blanket order of killing our power. Maybe, the power company should put in safer equipment that does not spark and cause fires.