A Long, Hot Day

Tuesday, July 15. Today we said goodbye to Glacier and made our way southwest toward Mt. Rainier. Our stop for the night is Ellensburg, home of Central Washington University, and the most contrived, bass-ackwards streets you're likely to find. Spent ten hours on the road. First half, stunningly beautiful – mountains, lakes, streams, then buttes, rocks; second half of the drive, eastern Washington. This is, seriously, the ugliest photo I took all morning.

Hot.

Smoke.

Had finally closed in on our destination when we learned that the smoke from the large fire that was obscuring the horizon was also obscuring visibility on I-90, and it was closing. It is HOT here; cooler where we are heading tomorrow.