Mt. Shasta from the car

These were opportunistic shots. We didn’t stop once, road warriors on a mission. But some of them turned out. This is coming up Interstate 5. I scraped the bugs off the windshield in post processing.

We don’t have clear skies in California in the summer any more. There were 2000 or so fires burning when I looked last, which was pretty soon after this episode.

Right after driving past Shasta, we saw heavy smoke, then we drove into it. It was horrible, it seemed like a pretty good rendition of Hell.

This smoke came into our car. It wasn’t until the drive back that we figured out that we have to put the fan on high, not level two, level four. Then it kept up with the smoke that crept into the car. On the way up we both had stinging eyes and developed some respiratory trouble.

But that’s nothing compared to the people living in Weed. Two hundred homes burned, a church, a new resource center and a school. Oh, and the main employer, a mill. One story was a couple coming back from somewhere, they see all this smoke, then they see cars driving the opposite direction covered with fire retardant. Terrible, and scary evacuating…the traffic jammed!

The fire had happened a few days before, well it was still ongoing, but the interstate was open again. I kept thinking, they would close this road if it wasn’t safe, right? Because we couldn’t see much. It was a weird feeling driving along at the whim of whatever was happening out there, but nothing like when the fire burned through the town and down to the freeway. Neighbors were pounding on apartment doors to get people out of there.

Miraculously, no one died. Whew.

I hope you have a safe happy week wherever you are.