Back on the road, we faced smoke again, and ash, ash everywhere. The fire was closer than before but the pilot car wasn't there anymore. Was this good or bad? Did they think it was safe enough that no one needed a guide or had they escaped? We feared the latter.
We drove through pockets of smoke and watched the ash turn our dark blue car gray. On our right, fire lit up tree tops and on the ground, it consumed dry grass and brush as it crawled slowly but steadily closer to the road. On our left, we could see fire in distant treetops. I begged to stop and take photos; when would I ever have a chance like this again?
But our driver wasn't stopping. With a car full of family, he drove with white knuckles and a deaf ear to my pleas. He whipped by photo op after photo op, slowing down only a little to let me take photos from the moving car window of especially spectacular scenes. I finally gave up and closed the window, but it was too late - the car smelled of smoke for weeks!
Web Notes
I used the colors from the fire to make the background tile and a brighter orange for empahasis. I truly didn't get any good photos of the fire, but I've used what I got as effectively as I could. I chose a text color that almost blends into the background - like smoke!
Lesson Notes
The special lesson requirement on this page is the snow applet, although here, it represents ash. Ash is really a very light gray, but I thought the white that comes with the applet was still effective.
