The old Platters song “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” includes the lyrics:   When a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes.   We have certainly shed tears since our lovely flame, Elko, left us.  We thank those of you who reached out with love, support and good memories of our boy.  It has helped a lot.

We have also had some real smoke in our eyes since Idaho is on fire.  Photo by our friend Pam.

The sun is often colored by smoke.

When we took a trip to Boise the normal route down Highway 55 was closed or delayed due to one fire so we went the long way around on Highway 95.

As we drove we could see a helicopter and bucket fighting a new fire.

This was my view of the fire from Highway 95.   The highway was closed shortly after we went through.  

Although we had delays we eventually did make it back to Donnelly using Highway 55 – one lane with a pilot car escort.

The closest fire to our campground is the Mesa fire.

The Mesa fire began July 26 and, as of August 5,  involves over 34,000 acres and is 42 percent contained.  We’ve heard it is about 4 miles away.

The blue dot is where we are.  The fire is coming our way but we haven’t heard anything about evacuations.

One day it snowed a lot of ash.

The fire fighting planes come right over us for hours each day.

We  know the fire is getting closer because of the frequency of the Scooper planes gathering 3000 gallons of water from Lake Cascade right in front of us.

We first noticed the scooper planes about a week ago coming through to scoop water for fire suppression.   They came in pairs on a 15-20 minute cycle.  Over the course of time, the fire grew closer, and now the planes come every 5-6 minutes for hours at a time.   See the video below.

It is very interesting to watch and would be fun if it wasn’t so sad.  We know the pilots and firefighters are working hard to protect what they can.

Unfortunately wildlife is also effected.  Twice this week we have found a weakened, disoriented bat during the daylight hours of early evening.  This one was in our campsite and rested for a time on our paddle board.

Between us and the Mesa fire is Tamarack resort.  The resort has been through a variety of bankruptcies, tax delinquencies and foreclosures since 2008.   There are still lovely homes, winter skiing and a variety of activities available at Tamarack.   One entity that did not survive the financial problems was Osprey Meadows Golf Course. 

 Randy remembers playing the course years ago and it is sad to see it now.

The former cart paths give us a terrific place to walk through rolling meadows and hills.   There are some interesting sites such as this former sand trap.

Former tee box.

A former par 3 at Osprey Meadows.

We haven’t seen as much wildlife in our walks around Tamarack as we would have thought.  We did hear and see sand hill cranes a couple times.

These were really bothered by my presence and took off – like I could bother them.  They are as big as me!

Thanks so much to my friend Jacque who braved the smoke to come up for the day.   Loved spending the time with you!

Sunset looks different when the smoke gets in your eyes.