Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Is fog evil?

Artist’s/driver’s depiction (hell, I wasn't going to stop and take a photo)

In the northern part of Redwood National & State Park I drove into thick fog on a curvy two-lane section of US101. Really thick fog. On a tricky part of the highway. With no shoulders. With redwoods right at the edge of the pavement. And traffic — including semis and large RVs — coming the other way, with other vehicles riding my ass.

Then, as the road straightened and added additional lanes, the fog disappeared — until the next curvy section. 

This repeated three times. It was as if the fog was sentient and playing a potentially disastrous game with us. But fog is just a soup of water molecules. This fog was simply doing what fog does, with zero awareness of us humans and our inability to see through a wall of wetness. (How does something totally transparent become hard to see through?)

It finally occurred to me why the fog was coming and going like it was. The twisty areas were at a slightly higher elevation than the straight parts. I had been driving up into the fog and down out of it. Ah, my meteorology, geography, and physics lessons for the day.

1 comment:

  1. It's - the Universe, maaAAaan, - is, like, trying to tell you something. Did you recently pass up a hitch-hiking cat? Cats are in charge, yuh know. One slip-up like that and they can make yer life miserable.

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