A Dull Excitement

Yes, I know that my title is an oxymoron. But what else do you call it when something has the potential to be exciting but in reality is quite dull?

Yesterday, we heard a helicopter fly over the house. At this time of year we always run out to see if it's carrying a bucket and we ran out yesterday. First, I saw the helicopter. It was carrying a bucket. Then I looked around and saw a plume of smoke rising from the mountain northwest of us about three miles as the crow flies. If you look at the picture at the top of my page, imagine you can see a low ridge to the right of the tall cedar. That's where the smoke was. Pictures? You expect me to remember to grab the camera?

There had been so many lightening strikes the last 36 hours that I didn't know if the chopper had been on that fire or another one so I called and they said they knew about it. Okay, so I'm not all that worried about it because they're on top of it, right? I kept checking the smoke all afternoon and evening and it didn't seem as if it was getting a whole lot larger or thicker so I went to bed. Okay, okay. I sacked out on the couch fully clothed until Mike got home.

I checked the smoke when I got up and it was a little bigger and a whole lot thicker. Shortly after that, we heard the chopper and a spotter plane. We watched the chopper drop at least six loads of water and by noon the fire was pretty much out. I don't think they had men on that fire. I think they used only the chopper and plane because the terrain is so steep there. In fact, they have to log that area with choppers.

If I'd sat down and thought about it, I wouldn't have worried at all because:
#1. The ridge runs east-west.
#2. Fire runs faster uphill - in this case, north.
#3. We are south of that ridge.
#4. There's another ridge between us and it.


No. No need to worry. So it ended up being a dull sort of excitement. It was very cool watching the chopper dump the water bucket, though. I think they carry about 300 gallons of water and when they open the flap at the bottom it looks like a waterfall.