And indeed, the weekend before our anniversary, Chad and I did a mixed pavement dirt adventure ride over to the coast for a quick overnight. (Who knew there was still an obscure route over the ridge that I hadn't yet ridden...)
At the moment, however, no one is riding. Last week, when the Camp Fire tore through the town of Paradise in the northern part of the state, a lot of the smoke blew down to the Bay Area. Below is *not* a sunset shot; the air is just that gross.
Fortunately, we had planned to go up to Downieville last weekend, and while the air was horrible driving across the Central Valley,
mid-day!
it was much better up in the mountains.
Chad and I explored some relatively new-to-bikes pieces of trail up towards the Lakes Basin. While one could see the smoke off in the distance
we enjoyed the clear cold air upwind of it.
Alas, school and work beckoned us back home, so we drove back into the foul soup. Earlier in the week, it seemed to be getting better, but yesterday the inversion layer got stronger, trapping a thick blanket of nasty smoke-filled air over the whole region.
Remember those pictures of the Central Valley earlier? That's what it looks like when the Air Quality Index is 181...which it is right here, right now. Last week, this set off the smoke alarms at the school; this morning some of the staff wanted to cancel school (as several colleges around here have), but the district wouldn't let them. The kiddo went off to class muttering about the air being filled with tiny white particles. If we are lucky, there will be a shift in the weather next week.
Though come to think of it, we are lucky to not reside in Paradise.
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