Friday, January 23, 2009

Smokey where are you?

So this morning after nearly succumbing to the desire to sleep a little later I rolled out of bed and prepared for my walk. When I walked in my bathroom it smelled like a campfire. I did not panic thinking my house was on fire, but rather knew the all to familiar smell was that of the smoke of a controlled burn that had drifted in our direction. Sure enough when I went outside there was a smokey haze filling the air. I started down Apostles Way towards Hwy 98 where I normally cross over to the south side of campus and realized I couldn't see approaching traffic until it was within 50 feet of me, and that's IF they had their lights on. Being that the speed limit through there is 65 and people are infamous for going 70-75 I didn't trust myself to effectively hear how far away they were and decided not to cross. I kept my walk to the north side and managed to get in over a mile.

The smoke not only kept me from walking on my normal track, but it also made the bit of walking I did do rather difficult. It was 10 degrees warmer than yesterday and that should have made breathing easier, but the smoke made sure that was not the case.


The sun breaking through the smoke.

More smoke

More smoke as I walked.

Smokey Bear where are you?

Note that this is smoke not fog..

Posted via Pixelpipe.

What I can't figure out is why the Fire Department and Department of Forestry decide that it is smart to do a controlled burn when, according to Accuweather, we are under a fire advisory. DUMB! Several years ago they actually shut 98 down several nights in a row because the smoke from a controlled burn got out of control and it was too dangerous to drive through.

Yesterday Liz and I went to the bank and Starbucks, and as we drove along 30A towards Grayton we could see a mushroom shaped cloud of smoke to the north. I have no idea if the burn was on the north or south side of the bay, but it was huge and obviously rather annoying!

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