The Calfire site tells me that the Picket Fire started on August 21 and was 100% contained on the 7th of September. When my friend Howard sent me these photos of its smoke billowing near Mt Saint Helena on the 27th of August, he said residents in Santa Rosa could smell the smoke from it, but not in Sebastopol. I keep fingers crossed for a quiet rest of the fire season throughout North America, not only near my once and future home in SR ;-).
Coming back to NL from Chicago in May, we took off into a bit of a rain storm with low clouds, so I grabbed some views of the sprawling city before it vanished beneath the clouds as we climbed. Below, taken very shortly after the one above, you can get a bit more sense of the Lake Michigan shoreline off to the east as the plane banks to head northeast and we’re looking pretty much due east.
Reasonably confident that’s Utah above, along with most of the images below, but I think by the final couple we may have reached Colorado. I remember straining to catch a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake which was well to the north of our trajectory, and it might be in some of these, but it’s long enough ago that I’m sorry to stay I’ve forgotten :-). No more shots remaining from that 3rd May flight, fear not.
A few more shots from the early-May SF to Pittsburgh run, with the city itself above showing more visibly where the two rivers merge to create the Ohio River (which is the third of the “three rivers”), and below where it’s mostly the Ohio, plus some midwestern and great plains aerial views.
I’ve a feeling that’s a ski area peaking out from behind the clouds over Colorado during the May flight, and below are a few last ones from either eastern Utah or Western Colorado, same flight.
If there’s snow on them in the desert in May, then they’re mountains. 🙂 Probably Utah, but maybe Nevada, still from that SF->Pittsburgh flight in May. Hoping for clear skies en route home to see interesting mountain views (such as this) along the way during my daytime return flights, or we’ll have to let this series go dormant ’til whenever I next get close enough to photograph something I can call a mountain…
Some lovely last images from the Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve in Mendocino County…not quite yet the very last images from that April-May California swing, but getting close :-).
Reasonably confident that’s Utah above, along with most of the images below, but I think by the final couple we may have reached Colorado. I remember straining to catch a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake which was well to the north of our trajectory, and it might be in some of these, but it’s long enough ago that I’m sorry to stay I’ve forgotten :-). No more shots remaining from that 3rd May flight, fear not.
(so much world, so little time....) 