John_V 

Nice ride with my buddy Steve but not the most enjoyable 51 mile ride I've done. First lap of the ride was with Steve the second was solo. Didn't get my chain oiled like I wanted to, before the ride, so the pedaling wasn't as smooth and easy as it normally is. The park rangers did a controlled burn in a section of the park yesterday and today the smoke was still pretty heavy. Coughed and hacked my way through that until the winds picked up and blew most of the smoke away. So during my solo lap, what do the rangers do? Why they burn another section of the park right along the trail, of course. Had to ride through very thick smoke with flames about 20 feet away for about 1/4 mile or so. I guess they didn't think about burning that section of the park when they had that path closed for repaving, last month.