Portland Sights & Lunch with cooldrum

[Guth_imp]

At one point we were looking at renting a house hours north of us up in Washington state for my asthmatic wife and son to flee to after air-quality levels here dipped to the point where they were beyond measurement. But as soon we started monitoring levels throughout the area we realized that there was simply no place at all in the entire Pacific Northwest region (we didn't even bother to look in California) where one could escape the hazardous air quality.

The number of fires combined with the sheer size of many of those fires was simply mind-boggling and unlike anything ever seen before. Much like the growing number of hurricanes pounding the east coast and the Gulf of Mexico, I fear that this behavior is soon going to become our new normal. But I put all of that stuff out of my mind while riding, which is amongst the many reasons I consider riding to be such a great escape (no McQueen puns intended).