I just got back from the top of Bernal Hill, where I took in the smoky sunset (and took these pictures), and now my throat feel chapped. I haven't felt this nasty, respiratorily speaking, since I went to Bangkok. My eyes are watering. It SMELLS like smoke. I guess that's the price we pay for no rain half the year.
Not the kind of weather one should do much cycling in - better to stay in and write demented poetry and read depressing Cormac McCarthy novels. It'll be interesting to see what the pollution situation will be like, and associated cycling ramifications, over in the post-industrial Eastern Bloc.