8/6 Drive from Oregon to Eagle Lake, CA

It was a very long drive today--325 miles to be exact, which is a lot longer than I wanted to drive, but I had to get out of the Oregon heat and get to this place, which was supposed to be cooler.  Eagle Lake is in the far northeastern corner of California in the Lassen National Forest.  And actually, it is not too far from Reno!  

The nearest town is Susanville, which is about 20 miles southeast of here.  I came in from the north through Klamuth Falls.  Warning:  There are some really bad photos to follow, but since it was pouring rain for most of the drive, and I could not stop to take photos, I decided to include them anyway.  

This "fog" is not rain, however.  It is pure smoke!  I can tell because of the smell and the fact that it makes me cough when I open the window!  So northern California has also been having wildfires. 

I took this photo because I thought the bends and faults in the rock were interesting. 

OK, here come some of my bad photos.  It had started to rain, and the camera did not have time to focus, but this is a firefighter camp, one of several I passed.  This was the biggest, however, with maybe a dozen big tents and 60-80 vehicles.   

Hope the rain helps these guys out and clears the air a little. 

I had pulled over to get a snack and could not resist taking pictures of this sign. 

You can see the smoke they are warning about. 

Another camp about 30 miles down the road.  This one was smaller, but tucked farther back off the road, so hard to get a photo. 

You can see the mountains in the distance, so the stuff in the sky was probably rain clouds and not smoke.  It rained during most of the last 100 miles of my drive, which was good.  And other than fire trucks, there was almost no traffic. 

Finally, Eagle Lake in the distance.  I'll post more pictures tomorrow of the campground, which is in a ponderosa pine forest at 5,100' in elevation.