smoky the bear says. . .

only YOU can prevent wildfires.

There are several wildfires burning near Mt. Hood and in central Oregon. Sometimes they're caused by lightning, but most of the time it's because some nimrod throws out a cigarette butt or gets a little overly happy dumping on the gasoline while building his campfires. We've been hearing about them on the news, but up until Saturday, hadn't really seen any evidence of them. Well, I left the house around noon and headed to the library because the nice librarians there sent me my final notice that a book I'd reserved for the third time was sitting there waiting for me on the shelf and if I didn't get my butt in gear they were going to give it to the next person in line like they did the other three times. Then I made a quick stop at Safeway to get some stuff for dinner. When I pulled in the parking lot, I saw the weirdest thing. It felt like I was in a movie where something was about ready to attack the whole universe out of the sky.

Turns out, it was smoke from the fires being blown west by the strong winds out of the Gorge. So totally weird.

And yes, it looks like I'm driving on the wrong side of the road in that second picture. Maybe that's why it's a law that you're not supposed to use your cell phone while driving. For the record, no pedestrians were injured and no police officers were around to catch me. And maybe I was more distracted by all the smoke than I was by the actual camera on my cell phone.