Based on how long it was going to take us to get to Wisconsin in time for our canoe trip (and give the children a couple of days to start school before we go off the grid to canoe), we need to leave today. At 9.00 AM we are modestly confident. Depart by 2.00. Many many trips back and forth, items not thought of come to mind as essentials (where did we put x?) Do we have chairs? Oooh, we need a picnic table. Hey there a whole empty bin, what are we forgetting?
At 2.00 we should be ready to leave today, sometime.
At 7.00 its dark, we are tired. And we scrub the launch.
8.45 PM, I go out to check the cars and lock the doors, but they are strangely mostly all open. Our neighborhood bear is out early checking the cars for food. Usually this happens after 9.30, and they will try the doors, but leave them alone if locked.
I see the cub leaving in the neighbor's garage and shortly the door closes. But I don't see the neighbor. A bit later, the mother bear and her cub, in our front yard, and I have a conversation. Mostly the bear says "Meaearre". And I suggest they stay out of garages. She hufs, and they wander off.
Surely we will launch by noon tomorrow.
On a, I guess positive note, having been complaining that it is crazy to miss the first two weeks of August (Summer lasts from about 4 July to about 10 August in Tahoe, and August is the only month it doesn't snow.) the smoke starts to get serious today.
About the smokes. Some years, and usually a day or two every year, smoke blows in from the many California wild fires. Sometimes its a day or two. Recently its a week or two, and 2019 and 2020 it was more on the monthly scale. In 2014 the fire in Yosemite created such smoke that from the beach you could not see even the near shores. And ash fell from the sky. In 2019 it lasted much of the late summer. Sort of a prelude for the pandemic - stay inside the air is bad.
The arrival today of The Smoke (and the huge number of fires started by that dry thunderstorm) meant Summer was now compromised. So I said, Okay, never mind about August, lets get out of here! The beach isn't that much fun if you can't see the sun. The map below shows about when we left. It's an interactive historical map.
The gathering gloom red sky at 3:00
Smokey day - no mountains
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