Orange sun

My time in China was spent under a sky thick with smog, overseen by an orange sun.

Returned to the States and a welcome blue sky, thanking those with the foresight to improve and protect our air quality decades ago...for all of two days before the smoke from the fires crept in...

Read Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic "The Road," in which the protagonists contend with a sky choked with smoke and ash and a lifeless earth...

Backpacked in the Sierra last weekend, where, at over 6,000 feet, an occasional shift in the wind would bring in more smoke from the fires down below...

Reluctantly left our mountain lake and the Plumas National Forest, eventually making our way along I-80 through the Central and Diablo Valleys, marveling at the multiplying malls and packed housing developments, closing the car vents to the thickening haze of smoke in the air...

And looked upon, once more, low on the horizon, scarred by power lines, another orange sun.

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