rollin' down the highway headed to our new home in austin smoke filled the evening sky, offering an oddly beautiful sunset tinged with sadness and destruction. helicopters in the sky, firetrucks lining the backroads, make shift churches set up offering some respite for those battling the blazes, these were our first images of texas. it was labor day weekend of 2011 and while we were ready to start our new life in austin the worst wildfire in the states history was raging a few towns over. the hardest hit was bastrop and for the first time since moving to texas we went to the state park there this past weekend. a year and a half later the damage caused by the fires is still very real and very evident.