We had a Yellowstone trip planed 16/18 days visiting the park for a week than wandering our way home by some routes not taken.
Well our first day out went great,started up Carson Pass and saw the King fire from a distance no problem.
Had planed to find a place to camp,maybe Hope Valley. That looked good but it was to early so we decided to head to Fernley to spend the night and get a nice early start Wednesday morning. To shorten our second day on the road.
On Wednesday morning I made the mistake of listing to the National weather report and it sounded like the end of the world was headed up through the South West with some problems for the Jackson/Yellowstone area.
They had posted "hazardous" weather for the next 3 or so days,just right as we would be driving and arriving there.
I listened and checked the parks report and same thing.So not wanting to get caught in something that would be a problem over 1,000 miles from home, we thought it better to not to continue east.
So to make "lemonade lite" we decided to hit the Sierras to some of our favorite places.
Even gave some thought to the Mammoth area but didn't know about the fire at Yosemite and if it was sending smoke over to Mammoth.
So the best bet was to head up Ebbetts Pass, thought about turning onto Highlands lake road but by the time we were on the pass the winds were blowing really hard and we had been back at the lakes with wind like that.
So the next stop was Union Lake and than after a coulpe days there the wind might lesses and we could go Highland.
That didn't work as when we woke this morning the wind had shifted during the night and all the smoke from the King fire moved into our area.
Well that seemed to be a sign and home was looking good.
As we headed down the hill the smoke just got worse and by the time we arrived in Murphys to get a goodie at the Aria bakery the smoke was so bad you couldn't see very far.
It's a good thing we are flexible,sure would have liked to visit our animal friends in Yellowstone but next time.
The only pictures I have are of the fire smoke,sorry.
This is the plume from Union Lake on Wednesday afternoon about 40 miles
away. It just would grow and move east and grow another one. Awesome.
15,000 acres or so.
down into the Reno area and moving east.
much to help the fire except change the wind direction,and blow the
smoke to the south. Yuck....
We still ended having a good time and all the places we wanted
to visit will be there for next time.
