Slight Detour

Well, this morning, we've got smoke.

I started smelling it around 10:30 last evening, and the smell hung on overnight.

The view outdoors early this morning was pretty eerie, even more eerie when I saw a runner in the semi darkness out for his morning jog at 4:45 a.m.

Bill spent the night off and on monitoring 9B News on his Kindle, after seeing a quick blurb on TV that a fire had broken out north of Bonners Ferry.

The news highlights kept coming every few minutes as the fast moving fire grew and families from more and more roads were told to evacuate.

We don't know this morning how much the fire has grown but can only imagine what a scary situation it is for all the people who live and have animals in the Turner Hill area.

Safe to say that our smoky haze around here is minor compared to what those folks are experiencing.

We have been fairly lucky with forest fires around this area during the last two or three years.

That could change if the wind that's been blowing overnight continues and with no appreciable rain in the forecast.

Fingers crossed for all involved and hoping the situation doesn't get worse.

Along with the smoke has come the heat. We pretty much hit our heat wall yesterday and spent more time in the cool house than outside in the sun or even shade.

We even watched the last rather exciting semifinal in World Cup soccer.

We'll be pulling for Spain to win the cup.

Anyway, here in the height of summer, and these weather conditions are expected, but it's never really too thrilling to have the body and mind sapped of energy and the desire to do much work.

In other news, I see that the downtown parking fiasco continues to rile up the locals and local businesses. Last night's news featured a report that one business has lost 75 percent of its usual income since the parking system was implemented.

This seems like something that could have been a lot easier if the old simple system of parking meters that took coins had been reinstated.

I know that in the past I never minded the parking meters and always happily and easily paid for my parking spaces.

Now, though, I'm not exaggerating when I say that in the past few days I've wanted to do some things in town but have totally bypassed the idea, knowing that parking would be confusing at best.

I wonder how many others from out of the city limits have taken the same approach.

Hope they come up with some ideas cuz I sure do want to get down there and check out Sawyer's Bakery.