Smoke Break

At the start of the second half (of our Canada vacation), the score was Positives 14, Negatives 2.  But, as we drove into Kamloops on Sunday evening, the mountains started to slip from view, despite the fact that we were edging closer to those very mountains with every passing kilometer.  How could this be?  

Not surprisingly but still sadly, the calamity of west coast summers had caught up with us again, and the smoke rolled into the dry Thompson valley from all sides.  By the time we woke up in Kamloops on Monday morning, the mountains had all but disappeared from the horizon.  The eerie white sky reminded me of my time in Shanghai, China, when I began to wonder if blue sky were even possible and the persistent white skies were interrupted only by the darkness of night.   

But in my cushy Island County life, poor air quality was still a rarity and to see the air quality meter resting in the middle of the scale (which was oddly labelled "unhealthy" beneath the upper two tiers of "very unhealthy" and "hazardous") was unsettling. Walking Lazer for a few kilometers, I didn't notice any difficulty breathing but by afternoon, a steady headache started knocking on the door and didn't offer much chance of backing away.

And so, while most would take a smoke break outside a building, we took a smoke break inside our hotel building, hiding most of the day from the particulates that lurked outside -- eager for a chance to coat the air sacs in our lungs.   A break from a break. Vacation Interrupted.   

Not the end of the world and certainly no reason to complain.   

There is rain in the forecast this evening. Wonderful, beautiful rain.  I'll be eagerly standing at the window this evening waiting for the first drops to fall, the particulates to be washed out of the sky, and my headache to retreat.  

And, perhaps tomorrow, the smoke break will be over!