"worst air quality in the nation"

Yup, I heard that on the news this week.  And last night our Shakespeare Festival of Merry Wives of Windsor was cancelled due to poor air quality. We found a place for up to date news on where the fires are (and where their smoke is:)
Check out Medford on this map just now:  8am  9/4/17
oregonsmoke.blogspot.com

It's making us a little sad and grumpy.  Judd's school's field trip was re-routed due to the smoke conditions and he had to take a school bus 2 hours south to California for a 2 night excursion.  It was still super hot and not very clear. Still no outdoor recess. We drove by a farm stand and, in addition to fresh strawberries and peaches, they advertised smoked salmon from Brookings.  (That's where the Chetco fire is still burning, uncontained. ) We thought it was a bad joke but turns out even when there's not a wildfire, they make really good "smoked salmon Indian style."

Yesterday, we defied all recommendations to stay indoors and walked the 8 minutes to downtown Jacksonville to check out a few shops we haven't been in.  Everyone is super friendly. The shop keepers ask where you're from (assuming we're all tourists) and we say, "here, now, but we wonder why we left Maine for all this smoke." They're all apologetic and say they've been here ____ years (we've heard everything from 8 to 18 to 83) and "it's never been this bad, never lasted this long...."  They assure us it will be better soon and we'll have a crisp fall with colored leaves and everything. "It'll start raining, blah, blah, blah...." We smile and look hopeful. Then another person walks into the shop wearing a face mask. We just now had breakfast at the bistro table in our kitchen and watched the turkeys in our yard under the too-orange sun, then watched ash falling gently past the window into the grass. It looked like a first silent snowfall but it didn't cheer us.