Hi everyone
. I am happy to say I am not on fire...yet. So in the Sierra Nevada it's usually a question of when and where the fire will happen...this one started last Sunday, about a mile from my cabin. We were put on pre-evac notice pretty quick, and since I was going backcountry for work for a week I put all my important things in my car and parked it at the fire station (figure that will be the last thing to burn, right?). I hiked out today, running late because our poor packer had a mule fall off the trail (mule is ok, not severely hurt, but it took an hour and four people to pull him out of a hole), and found out just after noon that I did get evacuation orders. I'm crashing my boss's place right now cause he's in Minnesota. He has wifi
. The fire is just shy of 3,000 acres now. It's scary, though I can't help but think that I will have a job next year. Though with the amount of bull thistle I found in one of my other fire's footprint, I think I will have a job for the next several years. Acres and acres of it, the densest I've ever seen, and taller than me. I may have nightmares about it for awhile.
This may be a weird question, but, have any of you ever been in a mine or cavern(s) and if so, could you describe how it smelled in there? (Musty/damp/dusty/other?) I visited Luray caverns once, but it was so many years ago, I remember the sights but not the smells. In my story there's a small mine once of the characters works in. (If it helps to know, this mine was abandoned for many years due to the entrance and many of the tunnels collapsing when the people who lived in that region were attacked and driven out. Current character found it and opened it up again because he was curious and he discovered semi-precious gems in there. Mainly works in it by himself as a hobby in his spare time and has only managed to re-open a couple of small areas.) I'm just trying to add that extra layer of sensory description by mentioning how it smells.
Caving is a hobby of mine. Mostly limestone. I don't think I would describe them as musty. There is definitely an earthy scent to them, but not like the ground after a rainstorm. Almost more like wet concrete. They're cool and have very high humidity, so can feel kinda clammy. The lava caves I've been in were dry (except for a few where I found frozen water--in the high desert in summer. They were cold air sink and absolutely freezing. Skull Cave in Lava Beds National Monument was one of those. The other was unnamed off the map) and kinda dusty. I've only been in a few mines. One was a limestone quarry, smell just like a limestone cave. Another was a barium mine, which just smelled earthy, then damp when we hit an underground lake. There were a few old gold mines I've explored, which just smelled like rock (honestly I'm not sure how to describe the smell of granite. Mineralish, I guess?).
Seriously, I'm such a slow watcher these days... 10 minutes here, 7 minutes there... That said, whoever it was who said that TOS doesn't hit its stride until 4 or so episodes in was bang on the money. The last few episodes have been interesting enough that I'm able to overlook (mostly) the low-fi special effects and sexism. Mostly.
