Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts

Jan 14, 2025

Pink flame retardants - what do we know about them?



 “Yeah. They’ve got a couple water sources, so she might be on the hose. I know they dropped mud on her earlier.” 

 “Why would they drop mud on Rowan?” 

 His laugh broke out, long, delighted. 

“Sorry. I meant the fire. Mud’s what we call the retardant the tanker drops. 

Believe me, no smoke jumper wants to be under that.”


Chasing Fire





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Glenn Beltz, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons


Aircraft battling fires raging through the Los Angeles area are dropping more than water: Hundreds of thousands of gallons of hot-pink fire suppressant ahead of the flames in a desperate effort to stop them before they destroy more neighborhoods.



CNN


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 “It’s thick pink goo, and burns if it hits your skin.” 

 “Why pink? It’s kind of girlie.” 

 He grinned as she got out a skillet. 

“They add ferric oxide to make it red, but it looks like pink rain when it’s coming down. 

The color marks the drop area.”


Chasing Fire 


Apr 8, 2022

How to Respond to "Bless Your Heart"



“She was so steamed up when I was leaving she shouted out how she’d been second-runner-up Miss Tennessee, which is her spotlight of fame. To that, I ended the encounter with the southern woman’s sweetest and most pitying insult.”

“I know that.” He pointed a finger. “I know that one. You said ‘Bless your heart.’”

The Liar



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via GIPHY





  




In the South, ‘bless your heart' situations arise all day, every day. Walk around long enough, and you'll hear ‘bless your/their/his/her heart' spoken either vehemently aloud or in a breathless whisper. It's a versatile phrase indeed. It has a thousand meanings—and just as many possible responses.


Southern Living




Jul 1, 2019

πŸŽ‡ Happy Fourth of July







Every year, the Quinns held a huge come-one, come-all picnic. Family, friends, neighbors gathered at the house, as they had since Ray and Stella's day, to eat, drink, gossip, swim in the cool water of the inlet and watch the fireworks.



Chesapeake Blue







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Tim Corradino [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]





8 last-minute entertaining and food ideas for the Fourth of July




Last minute entertaining means all hands on deck. Lifestyle expert Maureen Petrosky shares her DIY dΓ©cor, games and food for the Fourth of July get everyone in the family in on the fun. She shows us how to put a patriotic spin on Twister, make American flag pizzas, set up a sparkling bubble station and more.






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“Those some aren’t our tribe. And thinking of tribes, why don’t we gather ours for the
Fourth?”
“Fourth of what—oh. July. God, it’s nearly here.”
“We could play some ball, eat some hot dogs, watch the fireworks in the park.”



Savor the Moment





May 27, 2019

"Thank you"






Most of all, he liked the way the townspeople threw themselves into that
weekend, how much they cared, how strong their pride.

His father had told him of the ancient man who, when he himself was a little
boy, had walked creakily down Main Street wearing Confederate gray at an
earlier Memorial Day. One of the last living testaments to the Civil War.

Dead now, as they all were, Devin mused as he glanced over at the memorial in
the town's square. Dead, but not and never forgotten.
At least not in little towns such as these, which had once known the sound of mortar and
rifle fire and the terrible cries of the wounded.


The Heart of Devin MacKade 




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By Rennett Stowe from USA - United States Flag, CC BY 2.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26303259







20 Memorial Day Activities for the Whole Family





17 Memorial Day Quotes to Honor Our Nation's Soldiers









Apr 8, 2019

Be Inspired




The land in southeast Wyoming is a magnificent paradox. 
Spreading plains and rolling hills coexist with rocky mountains 
and thick velvet pines. 
From the kitchen window, the view was astounding, 
and Samantha Evans halted in her duties for a moment to drink it in.
The Rockies dominated the vast curtain of sky,
their peaks laced with snow, 
though it was late March.


Song of The West 





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OPEN YOUR MIND AND INVIGORATE YOUR SENSES.

Because some things can't be explained, only experienced.







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Moments later she was out the door, gazing around her in delight 
at the beauty of the starlit Wyoming night. Her breath puffed
out in thin white mists as she moved. The air, tinged with frost, 
carried the aroma of pine, and she drank it in greedily, enjoying the
mixed scent of hay and horses and aged wood. 
She could hear the lonely sound of a coyote calling to 
the full silver moon. 
And suddenly she realized that she had fallen in love with Wyoming. 
The spell of the mountains and plains was on her, and she was
inexplicably glad she had come.
"Goodness, you were out a long time," her sister commented 
as Samantha plopped down in a wing-backed chair in front of the fire a few minutes later. "You must be frozen."
"No." Samantha stretched out her legs and sighed. "I love it out there. It's fantastic! I never realized how big the sky was before, and I
don't think I'll ever get used to the space, the openness."


Song of The West





Jan 8, 2018

An Eyelash-Freezing ‘Icy Hell’




The cold struck him like a runaway train. "Jesus Christ. It freezes your eyeballs."

He jumped into the Ford Explorer she'd parked at the curb. "Your blood's thin yet."

"It could be thick as paste, and it'd still be fucking cold. Sorry."



Northern Lights



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Wesman83 at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
 or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
via Wikimedia Commons





The moment you step out into the frozen air on the way up Mount Washington — one of the most frigid spots in the lower 48 — the icy wind steals your breath and freezes your eyelashes. You can’t blink. The cold stabs your face and numbs your earlobes to rubber.

“It’s an icy hell,” said Amy Loughlin

NEW YORK TIMES




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Every breath was like inhaling splinters of ice. 
Those same splinters managed to spear around his goggles and into his eyes. 
Every inch of his body was double or triple wrapped, and he was still breathlessly cold. 

It didn't seem real, any of it. 


Northern Lights

Nov 24, 2017

American adventures





“Then you're in for a treat.”
He was absolutely right. The long, winding drive in the spectacular T-Bird was joy enough. The little villages they passed through were as scenic as any postcard. The sun dipped down toward the horizon in the west, and the breeze in the open car smelled of fish, then flowers, then sea.
The restaurant was hardly more than a diner, a square of faded gray wood set on stilts in the water, across a rickety gangplank. The interior decoration ran to torn fishnets and battered lobster buoys.
Scarred tables dotted the equally scarred floor. The booths were designed to rip the hell out of pantyhose. A dubious effort at romantic atmosphere was added by the painted tuna can and hurricane globe set in the center of each table. The candles globbed in the base of the cans were unlit. Today's menu was scrawled on a chalkboard hanging beside the open kitchen.
“We got lobster rolls, lobster salad and lobster lobster,” a waitress explained to an obviously frazzled family of four. “We got beer, we got milk, iced tea and soft drinks. There's French fries and coleslaw, and no ice cream 'cause the machine's not working. What'll you have?”


Megan's Mate




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Ansel Adams [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


From reliving the Wild West to hurtling round a legendary race track to climbing up an American icon, we bring you 33 fabulous American adventures everyone should experience.






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Take a minute, look up there. That's a sight, isn't it?"
Her heart was still beating too fast for comfort, but she looked up. And there, above the ragged shadows of the mountains, hung a full, white moon.
Stars exploded around it, as it someone had loaded a shotgun with diamonds and blasted away. Their light turned the icing of snow on the peaks an eerie blue, and dashed the crevices and gullies into deep, rich shadow.
This, she thought, was what she missed when she allowed nerves to hunch her over, to force her gaze to the ground. And though she might have wished shed had this moment alone, she had to give credit to Lo for making her stop, making her look.
"It's beautiful. The guidebook I bought called the mountains majestic, and I thought no. When I saw them before. I thought not majestic but tough and rugged. But that's how they look now. Majestic."
"There are spots up there that you have to see to believe, and they change, even while you're looking. This time of year, if you go up, stand by the river, you can hear the rocks clack in the spring runoff. Take you on a ride up. Nothing better than seeing the Tetons on horseback." 


Angels Fall





Sep 24, 2013

northern lights

Besides, you can't really see this from inside."

"See what?"

"Look up, Lower 48."

He looked where she pointed and lost his breath. "Holy God."

"Yeah, I always thought it was holy. A natural phenom caused by latitude, sunspots and so on. Scientific explanations don't make it less beautiful, or magical."

The lights in the sky were green with shimmers of gold, hints of red. The long, eerie streaks seemed to pulse and breathe, bathing the dark with life.

"The northern lights show best in the winter, but it's usually too damn cold to appreciate them. Figured this was a good night for the exception."

"I've heard of them. Seen pictures. It's not like the pictures."

"The best things never are.


Northern Lights


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3 great places to watch the northern lights

 in America

 

 

 

 Right now, you may see the aurora borealis – also known as the northern lights – from northern California to the Texas Panhandle to the Virginia coast. About every 11 years, the sun's magnetic-field activity peaks, causing the lights to blaze farther south. 

 

Here are top three spots to see the light shows, starting near the fall equinox on Sept. 22. 

 

"It's as good as you think," NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center scientist Joseph Kunches says. "It's worth staying up late to see."

 

 YAHOO! TRAVEL

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"So you came here."


"To bury myself. But things happened. I saw the mountains. I saw the lights. Northern lights."


He looked at her and realized by the faint smile on her face she understood. 

He didn't have to say more. So he could say more.


"And I saw you. Similar reaction to all. Something inside me wanted to come back to life."

 

 Northern Lights