The Great Dismal Swamp: Now 25% More Dismal!

Short post – thunderstorm's comin'.

Five or six years ago Jimmydunes and I went hiking in the Great Dismal Swamp. It was an awful experience - the less said about it the better.

If there were only some clue that it would have been so bad we never would have tried it. I mean, I figured it would have been awesome with the word “Great” right in the name of the place... Talk about disappointing...

Wait... I am reminded of a line from an old Simpson's episode: “'Great' meaning 'large' or 'immense'. We use it in the pejorative sense.”

Oh. Well, I'm an idiot...

Anyway, the swamp's been on fire since August 4th and they can smell the smoke (occasionally) all the way in DC. Occasional poor visibility and a near constant “CODE ORANGE” air quality alert sometimes makes being outside fairly miserable even when it isn't 100+ degrees out. When will this underground peat fire finally be out? No one knows. The best “answer” anyone can give sounds like the start of a math brain teaser or something (quote from NBC Washington) rather than a target date:

"Even if six inches of rain fell in a week," Timothy Craig, the Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge's fire management officer said, "we would still have to run the pumps for a month to put out this fire."

In any case, I hope that the firefighters and anyone living near the swamp stay safe. Good luck, guys!

Here's to hoping the upcoming storm will help...