Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Vacation Time the Good the Bad and the Ugly

Last week my husband and I took a much needed vacation to Central Oregon. We spent the first couple of days in Bend. This is the view from our hotel room. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the air is a little smokey. Not nearly as bad as it would get in the days to come.

In spite of the smokey air we were able to enjoy ourselves and had fun taking long walks along the river.
The morning after we arrived we enjoyed a spectacular sunrise thanks to the smokey air.

The next day we headed to Sunriver, our favorite vacation destination as well as the setting for my Sunriver Dreams series. We were blessed with two nice days. Our favorite activity in Sunriver is riding bikes. I took this next picture while we were riding along a river trail. I really miss that blue sky!
While we were riding I spotted a huge buck through some brush. I've never been that close to a buck of that size. I took a picture, but it's too hard to see him in the pic through the brush.

Instead I thought I show this deer. There was a herd that came by every morning and evening. I couldn't believe how close they got to us. One morning I counted ten deer. There was a small buck in the herd too. Even though this looks like it could be a buck it's an illusion.
The next day wild fire smoke moved in, so we hung out indoors. We ended up leaving for home a day early because the smoke was so bad it was getting into the house we'd rented. While we were in Sunriver, fires in Oregon exploded. Entire towns were destroyed. The devastation is hard to comprehend. Places we'd driven through just days before are gone. 
We couldn't go home the way we'd come and ended up going two to three hours out of our way to get there, but that was nothing compared to what others were dealing with.
Here's the view from one part of our drive. Sadly it got worse. 
We are now at home. The air quality is currently above 500. We are hunkered down with taped up doors and windows. We used towels at the bottom of our doors to try and keep the smoke out. 
Smoke was getting in from our air ducts, so we've turned off our air and heat, closed and covered our vents. We'll get that dealt with once the smoke clears. In the meantime we have a space heater we move around from room to room as well as a good portable air cleaner.
I am grateful for the beauty we experienced in the early days of our vacation. I'm also grateful to have a home to come home to.

If you are a praying person please remember the states along the west coast. 



Award winning author Kimberly Rose Johnson married her college sweetheart and lives in the Pacific Northwest. From a young child Kimberly has been an avid reader. That love of reading fostered a creative mind and led to her passion for writing. She especially loves romance and writes contemporary romance and romantic mystery and suspense with a heart.


Kimberly holds a degree in Behavioral Science from Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers.

Learn more about Kimberly and her books at https://kimberlyrjohnson.com/




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