got up early this morning and drove down to Phoenix to the

Customs office to register my Africa guns. Almost all the way down after I got out of the National forest that Flagstaff is in the middle of, it looked like an abandoned planet. Everything on each side of the road was dead and gone. You had to look hard to find anything green due to the drought. Normally the hills and canyons are all full of trees, juniper bushes and cactus, now they are pretty much bare. Plus everything on the west side of the hiway is on fire. All the canyons and hillsides are on fire and smoke is limiting vision.

All the way down on the opposite side of the road, northbound, was trucks, trailers, off road vehicles with stacked bicycles, and ATVs. These folks are going to be in a real hurt if they try to camp or hike or do anything in the national forest as everything is shut down due to forest fire danger. $500 fine if you even set foot in the forest and up to $5000 fine if you try to set up camp. I must have passed 100 campers and trailers on the other side of the road this morning as I was headed south and traffic was so bad coming back up the hill this afternoon that is was stop and go all the way. It took me twice as long to get back up the hill as it did going down. There are going to be some disappointed folks this weekend.