Fires and Floating Trash.

Smoke Plume over Susanville, CA. Photo by Author.

Northern California, August 2020.

Wildfire smoke was a daily part of life by now, and for 300 miles in every direction, there was no escaping it. What a time to go camping.

Yet it wasn’t just camping, I’d converted my Jeep into a camper and set out on an open-ended quest. There was no choice but to endure the smoke as I hightailed it from Lake Tahoe up U.S. 395, past blackened land and into…