Multi-Countywide Power Outage!

I was driving home from Encinitas yesterday afternoon to go to the drugstore across the street from my house and I watched the traffic signal lights go off...(kind of awkward being the first one at the intersection to notice). I tried to go into a few stores in the shopping centers across the street, but the power was out in the whole shopping center, at my school (which I live right next to) and my entire apartment complex! Little did I know that all of San Diego, Orange, and Riverside counties along with Arizona and Baja Mexico were experiencing the same thing! People were calling me non-stop freaking out and realizing how wide-spread this was, until our phone reception stopped working.

I ended up sitting at home with my roommate, John, for probably 5 hours straight of watching my neighbors go crazy from our balcony, looking at news updates, and avoiding the completely chaotic mess of traffic that was invading the surrounding San Diego area. There was a new set of sirens going off at least every 5 minutes. And as the kids across the street seem to think: the world was probably ending :) We found it rather entertaining how crazy people get without their electricity. Yes, I know, many people were not in as convenient of a situation as I was...some were in critical need of electricity in hospitals, car accidents, etc. But a majority of people were in the same, not critically dangerous, scenario. Having no electricity in such a wide spread area hopefully gave people a chance to sit back and CHILL! our society (especially such a big and busy on like San Diego) gets so caught up in "going, going, going", they forget to sit back and enjoy the more important, non electric, things in life. It was nice walking around my neighborhood seeing everyone walking around with their friends and family and spending time together just because! The nights skies were also beautiful without all of our usual night pollution :) So many stars! Yeah, I did miss out on the online studying I COULD have been doing, but I'll forgive that ONE guy, who accidentally unplugged the wrong thing at the wrong time, for that one :)Funny how such a tiny little thing can affect 5 million people for 12 hours...

The 15 candles John and I were able to scrounge up as it got dark. Who knew how many candles one little apartment could have! Or how well they could light it!

Setting up some ambiance with dragons and Catholic saints :)

Just had to take a picture with our 99 Cent Store-born Jesus candle!!