Fire Season Dread, Chapter 6

Six years ago a firestorm raged downstream from us in the little town of Paradise. A really ugly evacuation scene where nearly ninety people lost their lives. Thirty thousand people ended up relocating their lives after losing almost everything they were familiar with, including their homes. Every year since has featured these "blowtorch fires" from which Californians and Oregonians have had to run for their lives. 2024, July is proving to be no different. Fire is everywhere, ash is falling sixty miles West of the big one. The Park Fire which started yesterday afternoon in Chico, California has burnt over 75,000 acres in 24 hours. It is marching North aided by 25 mile an hour winds that, inside the fire these winds triple in strength. We are seventy miles from the origination of this latest fire, however ash is falling on my keyboard as I write this. I am more than a little anxious, as i cough my way through this workday. We have our 'go vehicle' ready to launch. Even though I can't really imagine our little wagon circle of green going up in flames.

July and August...Fire Season Dread.

Our community is enveloped by an oasis of green. A million acres, to the north and to the south was blackened by the Dixie Fire. We don't feel safe. The Air Quality Index is bound to to rise from the springtime 30's to something well over 100, soon. This will happen due to the increased traffic from second-homers and high lake tourists. Lightning or man-made fires will double and triple those numbers. We remember the Summer AQI numbers jumping to 400 and 500. It is hard to breathe when the numbers jump that high. Walking and riding your bicycle offers a daily reminder, we thrive on good air...we struggle with bad air. There are many trees and homes left to burn in California. You will see it in the headlines, by mid-July people will be evacuating their communities and praying for mercy from the Fire Gods. We have our "Go bags and Go vehicles" in the ready position. Yes, this is a "climate weirding" issue and it will not be something we tell our grandchildren about...they will know the story well...Their lives will be fraught with even more extremes. I wish them well...the future looks frightening from here.

Black Dog Mystery

Our Labrador gets a hike nearly every day. We have a trail network out in the back forty and she loves those hikes...she's been doing them since she was a pup. Twice now, since her sixth birthday, she's been embarking on her own hikes out back. She's been staying out there for two hours at a time. When she returns she acts like she doesn't know us and she is shaking. Our guess is that she has encountered the very large Black Bear that patrols our neighborhood at night. She's not a barker and she is not aggressive so we are never alerted to her situation. We keep hiking up the same trail in the morning and she is very busy sniffing out the trespasser and she stays right by my side. Two days later she is back to leading me out on the hike as if she didn't expect any sort of encounter. So we have gone back to using the Orange Collar. When we call her we beep her, no electric shock just a signal that we want her back here. She certainly keeps us busy...daily walks, daily lake or river swims and constantly asking us to fling a ball or toss a stick. No peace for the weary. Twenty years with Labs, we are well trained.

Business Report...The Challenging Twenties

Beginning with 2020 we were presented with some high hurdles. Covid started cranking in March and April, which is usually the Spring Rush period for the bike shop, even May was eerily quiet. Good thing I only ordered 24 new bicycles and 20 new kayaks that February. On June 3, 2020 our local doctor called us into her office to inform us that Lisa's recent Xray and CatScan revealed that she had lung cancer. Several visits to the UC Davis Medical Center later she had her tumor and half of her left lung removed. This began a three and a half year dance with various forms of chemotherapy. At the bicycle shop, supply chain problems began in 2021...we couldn't get product, we scambled to find new bikes. Kayaks, even though made in the USA, were not easily available because the raw polyethylene pellets that Hobie used were sourced out of Asia. Supplied from China and Korea this raw material was subject to new tariffs laid down by the Trump administration which turned off the Asian faucets of material goods. The Summer of '21 saw a blowtorch of forest fires rip through our county, mainly the Dixie Fire... resulting in a seven week mandatory evacuation cutting our season of outdoor recreation sales in exactly half. Nearly a million acres of scorched wasteland replaced our beautiful forest therefore eliminating our incredible playground of bicycling/hiking turf, turning most of the green to ashes. My free-to-the-public maps and trail ideas were made obsolete during this seven week disaster. Visitation numbers have remained at only a fraction of what they were during our first twenty five years of business. We are climbing out of this charcoal-colored hole with a whole new appreciation for the vast new views of the Cascade high country and much quieter cycling roads. 2022 featured a discovery that I had a large tumor in my colon that had to be surgically removed along with a foot of large intestine at the end of that Summer. As of March 13, 2024 we are done with chemotherapies and are feeling like returning to our adventure-filled lives afoot and in the saddle. Locals and "second-homers" seem to be making a special effort to support local small merchants instead of buying everything from Amazon and regional big citys. There is hope and we are learning to survive on less income and insisting on working less hours. Each day is a gift so, go out and play more and worry less.

Not That Much Playtime Left

This realization occurred while watching the solar eclipse (only partial in Northern California). Everyone in North America seemed to be focused on this event. No arguments, no conspiracy theories about it being the Real Thing...the Sun tucked behind the Moon and we were in awe...the networks were all focuused on this indisputable event. As the curtain closed and then, thankfully reopened, people began planning for the next eclipse...August, 22, 2044...best seen in the Northern Tier states. Hey, we have to call our son and arrange a rendezvous. His birthday is August 22...How about Montana? Possibly Chester, Montana. And then, it hit me....twenty years from now I'll be 94 years old! Will I still be able to drive to Chester, Montana? I'm getting older. We need to rendezvous more often. We need to pack in dozens of adventures and do it soon. We pedaled our fully loaded bicycles through Chester, Montana in 1978... the halfway point between Anacortes, Washington and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The people of Chester were incredibly gracious. They gave us the key to the fire dept. showers and the mayor (so he said) bought the groceries that we gathered on the grocery store counter before settling down next to our tent in the city park. "We'll make sure the Friday night teenagers don't bother you when you decide where you want to pitch your tent."

Honesty, Is That So Hard?

I learned all that I need to know in Kindergarten...it's the title of a book I read decades ago. It seemed incredibly simplistic but, I dove into it anyhow. Sharing, being honest and playing by the rules, being kind to one another and cleaning up after yourself...(we call this 'cover your trail'). Robert Fulghum wrote down these simple precepts in the early eighties. These are the first words out of your teacher's mouth when you begin your journey through the education process. If you have been paying attention during these last forty years you'll agree, all is lost. Politicians, lawyers and business executives have led the way down into this behavioral pergatory. We have become a delusional collection of selfish adults. America leads the way here, as I see it...advanced degradation of societal norms. I wish it were a different story...that we took to heart what our kindergarten teacher first laid down as 'rules to live by'. Of course parents were responsible for the first lessons in honesty and caring. I am not really sure where we went wrong. When I was developing in those early years, Presidents Truman and Eisenhauer were universally trusted and looked up to by everyone I knew. I didn't know that many people outside my immediate family but, I'd never heard of disingenuous, deceptive strategies for 'getting ahead'. I was quite naive, as you can see, but I think our entire civilization has gone over the edge. Public name-calling and flat-out lying is everywhere, on every channel of communication...the Internet is the ultimate 'deal with the devil'. I don't think there's any possibilty of climbing out of this hole. All we are left with is being able to trust a few close friends and maintenence of our own personal integrity.