Fred and I took off in September on a road trip up to Lakeview, OR. It's about two hours past Adin and Alturas. Here we are coming into town. We were looking to do some astrophotography for a few nights there and then move on to Black Rock, NV a ways to the south.

We stayed on the property of a good friend of Fred's, Al.

This is looking down the highway back toward Lakeview from the drive into Sky Trails Ranch.

A little bit of Al's property.

That's Al's house in the trees. He was gracious enough to let me use the bathroom and shower in one of his guest rooms. Fred was self-contained in his RV.

There's our campsite. We only stayed two nights. The first night was good until about midnight then the clouds starting rolling in. The second night the smoke from the Weed fire to the west really mucked up the air so we decided to head down to Black Rock in search of clear skies. It was pretty windy during the day.

Following Fred on the way back to Lakeview and points south. Fred has a great trailer for all his astro gear.

This is just a mile or so south of Al's place - you can already see the smoke from the Weed fire gathering on the horizon.

The smoke from the fire is getting worse.

As we got into Lakeview, we passed an old car rally heading north.

I think that was Eliot Ness.

Here comes Al Capone.

Here's a short video I shot at the Sky Trails Ranch on our first morning there.

Here's another short video that I shot at our campsite at Black Rock our first morning there. It's already pretty windy if you turn up the sound. We set up on what turned out to be a thin covering of hard manure. The wind was up around 15-20 mph and the smoke from the Yosemite fire came rolling in right after we got there. Continued on the next panel.

The visibility stayed at about one mile. We didn't stay outside long. The smell of the smoke was terrible so we both retreated to our respective shelters to wait out the smoke. It didn't get any better by morning so we decided to just head on back home. It took me a couple of washings and a lot of airing out to get the smell of smoke out from all my gear and clothes.