They are saying that this haze in our air stems from the fires from western Colorado. I didn’t place two and two together until I realized that much of the “sagebrush” that lives in that part of the state smells like the herb.
Kind of a strange smell really, burning sagebrush. My backyard in Grand Junction had several of these bushes in it, and it’s a rather odd smell to have around you all the time as it is.
Pointless and mundane fer sure.
Does your world smell like bananas or maple syrup or plain old pollution?
We were driving through Arizona around the base of a mesa (Garden of the Gods, IIRC) and a thunderstorm came through, which caused a classic flash flood - right in front of us. After admiring the force of nature (and letting the water di, we went back to the highway, then proceeded to the top of the mesa.
On top of the mesa, there had been a hailstorm and we stopped alongside the road to take pictures. Enough hail had fallen to look like it had snowed & the hail was turning to mist in the warmth of the day. And the hail had bruised the sagebrush, creating an almost intoxicated smell of sage in the air.
It was eerily beautiful both visually and in the olfactory realm.
Garden of the Gods in located in Colorado Springs about 20 minutes on a busy day from my house. Unless there is another Garden of the Gods I am not aware of.
Ah but you are more than welcome to come and visit our city any time!
And YES, during a serious rainstorm (rarely hail in Grand Junction) the smell of sagebrush was strong and intoxicating.
I’ve found that if the wind is just right I can smell an oil distillery about twenty miles away. It smells like french fries. Wife, who is an organic chemist, says, “Well, you can only combine carbon so many different ways.” I give her the fish eye, since there are probably tens of thousands ways you can combine carbon. She says, “Well, that’s only so many.”
Rider of the Burning Sage, it sounds like it smells much better by you. I have to become my company’s permanent Aspen rep.
When I’m lucky, my room smells like the incense I regularly use - I suppose since it’s “regularly” used, I can’t really notice it. The best though is when I return home from a week or so away and enter a room that’s filled with candles and that air-conditioning smell.
Written, that doesn’t look so appetizing.
I have to mention, of course, that my favorite smell is post-rain, especially when the ground is warm.
During the hot humid summer, when the wind is just right, I can smell the Edgeboro Landfill in Central NJ. Phew! But mostly it will smell like whatever is blooming and asphalt.
Boy, this thread makes me long for Pocatello, Idaho. I lived there for nearly 10 years and the smell of the sagebrush after a rain - heavenly.
Right now my world smells like thoroughly filtered, conditioned air. I can’t even see a window, just Dilbert cubicle walls.
The worst smelling place I ever lived was Peoria, Illinois, where on a good day you had your choice of the odor from the Pabst brewery or the Hiram Walker distillery. Fortunately it wasn’t often, just on hot summer days.
Local Puget Sound joke: Q. Why does Tacoma smell so bad? A. So blind people can hate living there too!
Things don’t really stink all that bad around here, especially since the Environmental Protection Act. Chicago is the center of the junk food universe, so there is usually a good smell wherever I work.
My first “real” job was down the street from the Baby Ruth/Butterfinger factory. Usually it was “roasted peanuts,” but it was sometimes “cornflakes,” which are in Butterfingers.
I spent five years working two doors down from a cookie factory. They smelled a lot better baking than they did after a couple months on the shelf.
Another job was near the Cocoa Puffs plant, but not near enough. I only got to drive past it. My present job is near another Post plant, but I haven’t smelled anything yet.
The worst was when I was on a 1200 calorie diet. That’s equivalent to a woman’s 900-calorie diet, so you can imagine how hungry I was. I would go jogging down the Illinois Prairie Path because it’s convenient and close-by. However, the path passed the Ovaltine plant. This was pretty hard to deal with.
The best smell is the fresh air after a lightning storm. Everything is clean and you can smell the ozone. That, and I don’t have allergic reactions when the rain washes the pollen out of the air:)
There’s a Jackson Cookie Company about 7 blocks from the office. When it’s nice enough to open the windows, the smell of vanilla wafers or lemon cookes baking can almost overwhelm you. Almost, but not quite.
This is because of the abundance of negative ions in the air. I put an ionizer next to my bed and it gives a similar effect and a lil better nights rest.
Tech, I love the smell of Sagebrush. The nearest place that has it is about an hour and a half away and when I get there I take a a handful of leaves and crush them and inhale the odor. I’ve tried taking the leaves home, but once they dry out they don’t have that wonderful scent.
My home town used to have a distillery and you could smell the smell of rye whiskey all over town. Occasionally when there are forest fires in northern Saskatchewan and Alberta the smoke wafts down here. It smells just like opening a bottle of Pine-Sol and inhaling. I like that smell.
Keith
