Late in the summer of 2015, merely a week before I had to go to college, we once again went on a trip to the land purchased five years prior. We packed the same RV and rode in the same vehicle as in the last trip. As we left and got on the road, I wondered what the land, that I hadn’t seen in five years, would look like and to what degree the brush had populated it. I-90 traverses from Seattle and continues east across the country. Along this highway, dense trees give way to mountain views and lakes as it climbs up to Snoqualmie pass. Snow remains visible on higher peaks that jut up out of the earth even during the summer. Mountains are visible from all around as I-90 continues through the Cascade mountains toward Eastern Washington, where the lush mountain forests give way to an arid desert plain and the roads run straight for miles on end. Sand dunes appear orange in the distance as the sun sets. Irrigated fields of grapes and various other crops flank the highway. An occasional wind farm with a multitude of …show more content…
Firefighters actually fought smaller fires near the road. Fallen trees that still smoldered lay next to the two lane road and small fires sprouted up near dry grass and trees. The tops of the once tree covered hills were mostly concealed in clouds of smoke. The unusual and unexpected nature of the occurrence gave me a sudden awakening. An unexpected encounter with a forest fire and the sense of danger awoke me from my thoughts of how dismal it felt to sit in a car for that amount of time and how I would rather stay at home. Seeing a forest fire on TV differed greatly from seeing one in real life. The sense of danger exists only when in the vicinity of the fire. I suddenly felt almost like I had five years earlier when I embarked on this same trip, except I felt less excited this time and a little more nervous. I had finally realized that I had embarked on a camping