Sunday, June 20th, I woke up at our cabin in Flagstaff, Arizona and looked out my window as I always do. I saw what I thought was a dark thunderhead just a few miles from us. Cool I thought, we need the rain. But as I looked closer I noticed the cloud was growing unusually fast. Then it hit me that what I was looking at was smoke. It was as if a volcano had erupted stacking a cloud of black, white, and brown thousands of feet in the air. Naturally, I freaked out! It was way to close for comfort. I ran out into the garage and jumped on my dirt bike to get a closer look. When I got to a clearing where I had a better view of the fire, I was somewhat relieved. It was a good five to seven miles from us and seemed to be pushing north with strong winds. We, unlike some others, were lucky.

As of Thursday, the fire was 40% contained and had charred 14,000 plus acres. Over 1000 homes had been evacuated. I have posted some of the pictures I took and a link to a great You Tube clip of the blaze. If you look through the photos on our website from our recent photo shoot you can see what the forest used to look like. Tall pines, Aspen trees, and crystal clear lakes. It was truly an amazing area. Although our property was spared, it feels like a big part of us was taken away. I can only imagine what I will see when I ride up there and see what is left of my favorite place on earth.

MH