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| View of the Cato fire |
I woke up to burning in my throat and my eyes watering
something fierce. Thistle and I stepped
outside for our morning “constitutional” and the air is just horridly thick
with smoke here in town. As soon as I
sat down to my computer, I logged onto the Weather Service out of Riverton and
found out that the Cato fire, which is just 13 miles north of town toward
Ucross, had exploded to over 20,000 acres overnight. The winds last night were
just horrendous and I imagine the fires spread with their help.
This is mind-numbing, folks.
I have friends out there who have ranches and I pray they are okay.
Yesterday, the last I heard from one family, they were digging trenches around
their property to try to save it and the scanner was so busy with volunteer firefighters
shouting what they were doing to try to contain things, it was almost too much
to bear to listen. Right now the scanner is eerily quiet and I don’t know what
that means. At least the winds seem to have died down for the moment and according
to the forecast will not get crazy like they were for the past few days.
There’s also another fire south of Tensleep that is over 500
acres and word just came down of a fire near Cooke City , MT.
On to happier news, though.
Yesterday, Sherry and I got together and went to the new Clear Creek
Cantina for lunch. We were very
pleasantly surprised that the food was pretty darn good. The menu was hilarious, I wish I could remember
all the cool names they had for stuff, but whoever came up with them has a
great imagination. We only ordered
appetizers this first time, choosing the “Nemo Nachos” and some fried pickles
for our first adventure there. The nachos were awesome, seafood nachos with a
great cheese sauce I haven’t tasted since I left Texas . They have quite an extensive menu and
even have things that my Mexican food hating husband might enjoy. The Cantina says
that it serves Tex-Mex and I think they may be right! I’ll report back when I’ve sampled more of
the menu. They also completely redid the
inside of the place, sprucing it up nicely.
The only bad thing I can say so far is that they haven’t got their
delivery down yet, they seemed a bit ruffled and slow on service. But, they
just opened a few days ago, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sherry and I are all set for the benefit for Peg, I do
believe. I got a few more donations
yesterday, including a beautiful piece of stained glass art donated by my
friend Debbie, that I might just have to bid on myself! Now, we just have to
get everything down to the Moose and set up Friday evening and we’ll be all set
for Saturday. From the buzz around town,
sounds like we’re going to have a decent turnout, fingers crossed! I have to go
pick up two more donations today and I think I’ll be pretty much done.
This afternoon, we have our second “Cash Mob” happening down
at the Treasure Chest downtown from 4-6.
The last one was such a success and I’m hoping this one is, too. The
Treasure Chest is an antique store and I’m sure I can find something to
purchase there this evening to help them along.
Well, I have a feeling I’ll be spending a lot of time
indoors in the A/C today, trying to stay out of this smoke. My thoughts will be with my neighbors out on
the prairie and with those firefighters who are risking their lives in this horrible
heat to save our precious land and livestock. Please keep everyone out West in
your thoughts. There are fires burning
everywhere, it seems.
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