The smoke has arrived.....

 8:04 am - Tuesday - August 4th - LPG&RVR - 64° F, humidity 13%, cloud cover 7%, wind 10 mph out of the north by northwest.....clear skies, but smokey today with a forecast high of 96° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were in Kalispell, MT.....

....overnighting at the local Walmart Supercenter.  Kalispell lies just a few miles north of Flathead Lake, and about 20 miles to the southwest of Glacier National Park.

We awoke Monday to smokey skies.  There are numerous wildfires in Oregon and Washington contributing to our currently smokey conditions here at LPG&RVR.  You may have heard about the catastrophic fires burning on the northside of Spokane where entire neighborhoods have been burned to the ground.  Reminds me of the Pacific Palisades fires almost two years ago.  My sister lives on the south side of Spokane, and is fortunate to have downtown Spokane, and the very large Spokane River between her home and the fires.  This is the first time this summer LPG&RVR has been impacted by wild fires smoke wise.  

Around 9 am TLE and I headed into Alturas to do our weekly shopping, and the smoke is much, much worse there (Alturas is 20 miles north of Likely).  As we neared Alturas the hazy skies reminded me of driving into the L.A. basin on a smoggy day; not much difference.  We made our usual stops at ACE Hardware, Dollar General, Grocery Outlet, and Holiday Market before heading back south to the much less smokey LPG&RVR.  Sometimes a little perspective on how bad it could be if we were living 20 miles further north helps.

We were home a tad after 11 am, and once the car was unpacked I headed out to the 'lido deck' to spend the rest of the day.  I did set one of our sprinklers to water a dry patch of grass next to the coach, but that was the extent of my physical activity for Monday.  I read, smoked a cigar, drank ice coffee, and napped until after 4:30 pm in spite of the 92° F high for the day.  There was just enough breeze to keep the 'lido deck' comfortable.

Our good friend Claude Banker, who works, and lives here at LPG&RVR, had to make a run up to his mother's home in Oregon last Thursday as she had been admitted to the hospital unconscious.  I believe she was either 105, or 106 years old, and has been in failing health for a couple of years.  Anyway, we got a text from him Sunday that his mother had passed without regaining consciousness.  So he and his family have been in our thoughts and prayers since then.  I'm sure he and his family would appreciate your thoughts and prayers right now.  She had a very long, and full life.

I just took this picture towards the Warner Mountains, and Eagle Mountain....

....you cannot even see the mountains, or Eagle Mountain because of the smoke.

Thanks for stopping by!