138 To Diamond Lake

Once east of the Roseburg outliers, it's pretty calm. Turnouts are almost frequent enough to keep folks behind me from getting their fur up. It's mostly other travelers with an occasional semi.

The Umpqua River morphs between wide, placid to narrow racing to shallow with rapids...a real panoply! Smith and I came this way in 2016.

It's the smoke that's diff. Hit whar layin' heavy in spots. Hyarz whut hit lookt lak gwan up thuh mountin.

I forgot tuh fill muh jug an' when I got out, around 9 pm, the fog was so dense I could barely see ten feet. There was a strong smell of smoke that had me wondering just how far away the fires were. But the literature from the Roseburg Library book sale soon had me distracted.

This morning was a whole nuther whurld.

Further down the road, I made camp inna small roadside slot. Time was I'd've felt too exposed this close to the road. But after years of "no problems," I'm more at ease. Besides, this one doesn't go anywhere and there've only been three cars in the hour and a half I've been here. 

Phoebe

As with the "windows" in Utah, there's a cutoff date, usually mid-August, for enjoying (western/coastal) Oregon; that's when the rains begin again. Though the fog grew noticeably denser passed the mid-month mark and started earlier in the evening, the rain held off until yesterday. The forecast was for it to continue through Sunday, but the gods saw fit to give me a break.

This Doug Fir (I think that's what it is) is about 3 feet acrosst at the ground.

Sky!

Rain began promptly at 8 pm.