Rim Fire « Carissa Snedeker Photography

A few of you have been asking about the smoke. It’s still here and it’s still awful. We’re hoping to get some respite by the weekend.

The irony? Today marks the kickoff of the annual Best In The West Rib Cook-off.

The jokes write themselves.

A friend of a friend cracked on Facebook, “Right about now all you need to do is wave your rack of ribs out the car to Gardnerville and back. Voila, smoked ribs!”

A friend quipped: “Enjoying a beer and margarita on the patio, eating appetizers. Smells like we’re at camp. That’s on fire.”

The view this morning at the stoplight in my town. Those hills are just on the other side of the signal.

Edited to add: It just dawned on me that the tracks on the highway is ash. It’s getting on everything.

The northern Nevada area is socked in with smoke from the Rim Fire at Yosemite. See the link below for coverage and a dramatization of the way the smoke is moving across the west, not only from this fire, but others as well.

Wildfire near Yosemite surges, prompts evacuations

This is the view looking south from our front door. Normally we can see the foothills. I can’t even see to the end of the road.

Obviously, this is not good, health-wise. Our throats are raw, our eyes are burning, and we are sneezing and coughing. I can’t close the windows because we rely on a swamp cooler to cool the house.

Still, the photographer in me had to take advantage of the diffused light.