While the East Coast has been sweltering under triple-digit temperatures and sticky humidity this week, the Pacific Northwest has experienced its own heat wave. Most of Oregon and Washington have seen highs around the century mark, though without the high humidity in the East. Even the normally cool coast reached 93 on Thursday, beating the old record high by nearly 20 degrees. Facing a four-hour drive from my home in Southern Oregon to Portland on Friday, I decided I should leave early in the morning to avoid driving during the hottest part of the day. What with attending to some last-minute work projects, watering all the plants thoroughly and dealing with a few unexpected interruptions and chores, I found myself finally rolling out of the driveway at noon. So much for my missing-the-heat plan; it was already nearly 90. Nevertheless, I decided to begin my trip with the windows down and the A.C. off. I cranked up the volumn on the Classic Vinyl station on Sirius radio and headed north on I-5. Zipping along at 70-plus miles per hour, I found the wind blowing through the windows kept me comfortable enough, and I was able to enjoy not only the sights but the smells of a beautiful if toasty summer day. Some of my favorites:  — The peppery-dry aroma of sun-baked pines as I climbed from the valley floor towards the first pass — The sweet, fresh smell of new-mown hay — The sharp, woodsy scent of bark and sap as I passed enormous piles of logs being soaked down by huge sprinklers in a sawmill lot — The mossy, damp-earth smell of markedly cooler air as the road passed over several rivers along the way  All these complemented iconic sights of a midsummer day: — Broad-winged hawks coasting the thermals over the fields — Heaps of round hay bales (“toilet-paper hay,” so dubbed by my daughters years ago because they do resemble large, tawny-colored rolls of t.p.) scattered across gently sloping hills — Rippling fields of grain ripening to gold contrasted against dark-green stands of trees — Piles of thunderheads heaping up against the Cascades in towering billows of white, purple and gray I have to admit that by two o’clock — when I reached Eugene, traffic slowed to 60 mph and the temperature neared 100 – I closed up the windows and let the air conditioning bathe me in cool comfort. My favorite part of the drive, though, was certainly those first two hours, when all the sights and smells of summer surrounded me and jogged memories of past summer days. I hope you’ll have the chance to enjoy some summer driving this season, with the windows down, the tunes cranked up and the sun high in the sky. – Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor