Not breathing fresh air on Wednesday...

Wednesday of this week was national Clean Air Day in Canada and wasn't that the height of irony when smoke from wildfires in Canada impacted New York City's air quality index such that it reached 405 (out of 500)- the highest ever recorded, according to the EPA? An air quality index above 100 is considered unhealthy while anything above 300 is "hazardous," the worst possible rating. (Source is the New York Post) 

It wasn't just New York City that was impacted by wildfires in Canada. Many northern areas of our country were impacted with extraordinarily poor air quality as well. On Wednesday, I was within spittin' distance of New York City. I was in New Jersey, less than five miles away from the George Washington Bridge that takes drivers into Manhattan. Suffice it to say that the air quality was not good where I was. 

I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I spent time outdoors on Wednesday. In truth, I had no idea how bad it was. My sense of smell has been diminished due to Covid. When I stepped outside Wednesday afternoon, I smelled a whiff of smoke briefly, faintly, but then that went away. Of course the air around me looked odd- otherworldly even. But I never coughed or had eye irritation so I continued with my planned walk. My walk was to a nearby city park where I had seen deer on another occasion. On that occasion, I just had my iPhone with me to snap pictures and so I didn't have good zoom capabilities. I brought my Nikon on this walk to see if I could get better shots of the deer, assuming I saw any.

This is a picture at the park that I took on Monday. The next picture is one at approximately the same location on Wednesday. In the Wednesday's picture, I was standing in front of the wood post so it doesn't appear in the frame. (I wasn't even thinking of a comparison picture or else I would have stood at the exact same spot on Wednesday that I did on Monday!!) The two pictures were taken close to the same time of day- early afternoon.

I saw three deer total on Wednesday. There is no filter on this picture (or any of the pictures that I took on Wednesday)

There's a deer here that's barely visible. It's in the middle of the photo.

I think this picture looks Jurassic Parkish (though thankfully no dinosaurs roamed here!)

The same picture but standing a little further back to get the wildflower/ weed in the photo.

 I think this looks other worldly... 

By Thursday, the air quality wasn't great but it wasn't nearly as bad as Wednesday. There was even the tiniest sliver of blue sky at some points in the day which was so nice to see.