A deep orange sun against a brownish gray sky, palm fronds and power lines in the foreground.

We’ve had some ash fall over the past week, but for the most part, the air quality at ground level has only been awful, not unbearable. Especially since the heat wave subsided.

But the light has just been wrong. Normal clouds in the morning breaking up to reveal a layer of smoke behind them, letting through yellow-orange, almost but not quite late afternoon light at midday. I went out for a walk after work, once it had cooled down and saw this.

It’s Pokemon Go Fest this weekend, and with a global pandemic going on, the normally travel-based event has gone virtual, with in-game events both free and paid. And, amusingly, downloadable papercrafts and stand-ups to print out.

The kiddo wanted to make a stand-up of Spark, the leader of Team Instinct. And we had the cardboard for it.

We actually managed to get out to a park and do a Dialga raid. We sort of went somewhere!

Cardboard stand-up of Spark, a human character from Pokemon, in front of a tree, with a lightning/bird-like Pokemon superimposed over the image.

The outside of the former Great Maple restaurant at Del Amo Fashion Center. It opened with the new upscale wing of the mall, and closed suddenly about a year later. (Like, people showed up to work and the door was locked.) Nothing’s moved in since then, and of course nothing’s likely to move in for a while now.

The outside of a building with several tall screens of square patterns in front of it.

The facade reminds me a little of the facade on the old medical building that used to stand near the corner. It was demolished for the parking lot that came along with the mall expansion. And I have to wonder if someone was actually trying to keep a little bit of the old building’s character alive?

A two-story building with tiles and several vertical screens with square-and-diagonal patterns and an awning.

A Pokemon looking at a door with a sign saying that the place is closed.

Sneasel is disappointed that the museum is closed.

A turtle-like Pokemon on a rock in a pond, near a real turtle on a concrete berm.

Turtwig has found a new friend.

(I had such a hard time trying to get it to face the right direction, which is why it’s still a little bit off. At least I didn’t need to worry about the real turtle wandering away while I set up the shot.)

A frog-like Pokemon next to a real statue of a frog.

I don’t have a clever caption for this one, but thought it was cool that I caught the Croagunk right there while trying to decide what to do with the frog statue.

Incidentally, the frog statue is a Pokestop. And so is the historical cabin in the Sneasel picture.

A spherical Pokemon with lots of protrusions next to a sign about Covid-19's ability to stay on surfaces.

I think Koffing is supposed to look like a magnified grain of dust or pollen…but it looks an awful lot like a coronavirus, too.

Finally made it out to the botanical gardens up in the hills for a hike. They’ve actually stayed open this whole time by requiring reservations to limit the number of people on the grounds at a time. (Also face masks, distancing, and closing off benches and some sections.)

Ironically there were more people there than I usually see. The limits must be against an increased demand due to the fact that they were actually open!

More photos on Photog.Social and from this and other visits on Flickr.