Looping around to the west-northwest and the Indian School trailhead.
A fine haze hovered above the Rio as I hiked around the Foothills trails yesterday.
A neighbor remarked that it looked like a “Star Wars” scene set on Tatooine.
And come evening, all that vaporized forest certainly made for a thrilling sunset.
The photo really doesn’t do it justice. The sun was as red as Sauron’s Eye, and it vanished long before the actual horizon in an impenetrable cloud of smoke. Whether it came from the Medio fire near Santa Fe or one of the many, many others scattered around the West, I have no idea.
I had been thinking about a nice long road ride this morning, but now I’m not so sure. I like my air a little less chewy.
Tags: Foothills Trail 365A, Wildfires
Mad Blog Media 
August 20, 2020 at 9:14 am |
We’ve had some freaky skies here. The other day there were over a dozen folks out dog walking, stroller pushing, biking and whatnot who all completely forgot what they were doing and stopped in the middle of the road, forgetting about social distancing and oncoming traffic, while they stared at the red-orange sky.
Got a little bit of rain, thought we were getting a little bit of relief, but woke up to a vanished horizon in both directions.
August 20, 2020 at 11:46 am |
Yeah, we and the neighbors all took five last night to check out that red fireball sinking slowly in the west.
We don’t get a real good look at the sunset from here. El Rancho Pendejo sits at the bottom of a cul-de-sac and there are a couple of two-story places to the west of us. Now and then, if it looks like a real good one, I’ll mosey up the street a bit to get the full show.
August 20, 2020 at 9:21 am |
Your first photo looks gloriously clear compared to what we are experiencing here in the SF Bay Area. I rode yesterday morning and felt fine–although I noted, I barely saw any other cyclists out. Today our air quality forecast is Unhealthy. So, I will stick to indoor yoga. Let’s pray the whole dang country doesn’t burn down!
August 20, 2020 at 11:50 am |
Some of the photos I’ve seen from California make the place look like where you go when you die if you’ve been exceptionally bad. I have friends up and down the state, and I hope all y’all are taking real good care.
We’re a thousand feet up from the Rio here, right at the foot of the Sandias, so the smoke has to be real serious to climb up to us. So far it’s not that bad. But I have a sensitive nose, which would astonish anyone who witnessed my misbehavior from, oh, about 1972 to around 1985.
August 20, 2020 at 9:34 am |
I was on the BMW coming home from BombTowne yesterday. The whole horizon to the North was smoke and more smoke. The Medio fire, now at about 550 acres as of yesterday, was not billowing up very much and that smoke was headed south and draping the Sangres. So at least up in my neck of the woods, it seems most of the smoke is coming from those big blazes in Colorado.
The good news is this latest Sangre de Cristo fire is growing slowly. By two days out, the 2011 fire up in the Jemez (the Las Conchas fire) was well over 50,000 acres and we had to flee the Hill. Hopefully, we will not see a repeat performance. Apparently the Medio fire is headed for a burn scar from a previous 2011 fire.
August 20, 2020 at 10:04 am |
Wind doesn’t want to cooperate. Typical bluster here (NOCO) for the last two weeks (Wyoming blows and Kansas sucks) but dead calm as the fires burned. Then the wind shifted, been mostly from the East for the past few weeks, so I guess it’s going into the foothills then recirculating.
Damn things have been zero to 5% contained for too long.
But fuck it, there are blue and purple states, so let ‘em burn, right?
August 20, 2020 at 10:05 am |
And we’ve got west Nile back, so we have that going for us, which is nice.
August 20, 2020 at 11:16 am |
Smoke in the air here as well. Can’t smell it, but achoo! Hotter than hell again, Genevieve may give us some relief. Hope it the quickly moves on to water California. Friends in SF have been breathing smoke for awhile now.
August 20, 2020 at 11:56 am |
You guys got fire out the wazoo down there. Five fires in an arc from Mexico to New Mexico. Sheesh.
August 20, 2020 at 1:28 pm |
My brother-in-law near San Jose has sent photos of yellow skies for a couple of days. Now it seems that the air conditioner cannot filter the smoke, or the scent of the smoke of fires that are burning many miles away. I have some distant relatives that live in a nearer and warmer part of CA – haven’t heard from them yet.
August 20, 2020 at 2:26 pm |
Not wanting to initiate a new topic, but Steve Bannon has been arrested for what he does best. That would be screwing with the Constitution.
August 20, 2020 at 2:47 pm |
Yeah, I saw that. I’m surprised the cuffs didn’t slide right off the greasy sonofabitch. I bet the cop that snapped the bracelets on him is decontaminating in a bathtub full of bleach right now.
Hey, a Castle Rock fella is involved. Florida I expected, along with all the usual racist douchenozzles like Kobach and Tancredo. But Castle Rock?
August 20, 2020 at 3:34 pm |
Castle Rock is pretty much Trumpsylvania these days.
August 20, 2020 at 3:55 pm |
What, has El Paso County gone Commie on us? I would’ve expected to find Dougie Lamborn and a megachurch or two up to their Bibles in this sort of thing.
August 20, 2020 at 4:30 pm |
Grifters and con artists connected to today’s GOP? I’m shocked, shocked!
August 20, 2020 at 5:39 pm |
For a conservative’s view of today’s right wing grifters, try David French. This may be behind a paywall but if not, it’s worth a read to anyone who thinks every conservative is a con artist (I subscribe to The Dispatch to balance all the other stuff we get in this house from the other side of the abyss).
August 20, 2020 at 9:28 pm |
Thanks for prettying up the link, Patrick.
August 21, 2020 at 12:24 am |
Got to be honest, your orange menace is pissing me off.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122526202/coronavirus-jacinda-arderns-response-to-donald-trump-look-at-the-covid19-case-numbers
August 21, 2020 at 6:03 am |
I think I read in tRumps’s nieces’ book that when a very small child, tRump had an emergency surgery. He was comatose and brain dead when brought in. So doctors bypassed his brain and his mouth is powered by his asshole and vice versa. Most of what he says really stinks right? Well that’s because with the junk food he eats there is mostly noxious farts coming out of his mouth. There is no brain. You can blame many things he says on the “bowel gas to speech” translation technology they installed during the operation. It was years ago and the software was very primitive back then.
It MUST be true, what other explanation can we give Hurben for why tRump is such an asshole?
August 21, 2020 at 7:48 am |
That would explain a lot.
August 21, 2020 at 6:40 am |
It’s not his fault. He’s on a mission from god. Deflect, distract, and deceive is the con man’s triple threat. And we elected him.
We shit the bed. It’s past time for new linens and mattress. Old shit needs to go to the landfill.