shooftie

Headed out Saturday morning with thoughts of the high spot campsite to catch a breeze and maybe see the Fourth of July fireworks over on Neah Bay. It has been an incredibly dry and hot summer here and the forecast was for mid 30C in the area we were heading to.

Started looking for fireworks early

It was hot and for some reason there were a lot of horseflies and deer flies around. I have to get one of the those electric fly swatters. Nearby pond was so nice, warm, peat infused water. Left you feeling very clean and refreshed. We were back and forth to the lake for a dip a few times.

Still looking for fireworks. Well no, actually we could smell smoke when we arrived, we were wondering where the fire was.

There was, and I think still is, a complete fire and BBQ ban in the back country, so we had pre cooked the food for supper. Grilled meat, grilled and marinated porcini mushrooms, a simple salad, all on a store bought tortilla.

After dinner walk and then back for the fireworks. Yeah, you probably are expecting pictures of the fireworks, but Neah Bay is 20+km from where we were and while we could see them, and believe it or not we could hear them, I couldn’t get a picture.

  

So I put up some battery powered Xmas lights for a small attempt at acknowledging the southern neighbour’s celebration.

  

In the middle of the night we noticed the moon was hazy, was it fog or smoke?

Next morning about 6:30 am, eastern sky was reddish.

Nice shot of Jake.

The smoke haze was moving in form the east.

And got worse.

  

At times like this, toast is the answer.

We packed up and decided to go exploring. The smoke haze changed the light in a strange way. Some things took on a sepia tone, but the greenery really popped out. Explored along Braden Creek, Loup Creek, got tuned back at the gate on the road near the abandoned Gordon River logging camp, doubled back to Port Renfrew and stopped at the Gordon River a few km upstream of the marina. The point and shoot camera really exaggerated the sepia tone. The iPad Air II not so much.

Braden Creek

And the very low Gordon River

Canon PowerShot camera really made a meal of the tinted light.

  
  
On the way home we stopped at “Shirley Delicious” coffee shop in… Shirley. Good stuff. The new wheel and tire combo worked outs great. The tires have a much, much smoother and less jarring ride than the old ones. Traction was better although on some stretches of road it is like driving on ball bearings. I didn’t notice the slight gearing handicap with the larger (5 or so percent?) diameter tires on the rough roads, but did notice it a little on some steep paved grades.

Oh, and once home we found out where the smoke was coming from. Most of it was from Pemberton over on the mainland. Some might have been from the fire at Sproat Lake near Port Alberni here on the island. An inversion layer in the atmosphere kept the smoke contained. I found this, and I admit it looks a bit dubious, satellite pic taken yesterday, Sunday the fifth.