I mentioned that I drive to spend one night with my family between jaunts out of town. This morning, I left Black Butte at 10am to get to the airport for my flight.

Black Butte is one of those holiday resorts where the lower upper -class go to play. We're talking homes that cost more than good homes in the big city. My parents ended up with a condo there because my father organized their bridge group to go together and buy a condo there when it was just being built. Prices have risen enough to where we couldn't afford to buy the condo today.

I had to go a different way to get to Portland because the usual highway was closed because of fires. In fact, Black Butte Ranch was on Phase 2 pre-evaculation status so my family had everything packed so they could throw everything into the car and be off at any moment.

This meant the area was full of smoke, also. Normally, from the Ranch you can see several snow covered mountain peaks set against blue sky, but this week you were lucky to see the trees on the other side of the golf course.

So the drive back to the big city smelled of smoke and the views were limited. I drove over to Redmond, up through Madras, through the Hot Springs Indian Reservation (and past a few casinos, of course), through Government Camp and past Timberline Lodge and finally down to the big city.