The Nation Chronicles Book Two

They spent that night by a quiet lake that reminded them of the one back in Washington. They were now in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, just outside the small town of Wamsutter. They were both becoming used to the traveling, and had each developed a routine they followed every night when they stopped. They had twice seen smoke off in the distance that day, as if to the east of them some great fire were burning. They had correctly guessed the reason long before they reached the fire. Someone, or something, had set the entire city to flame.
For several miles before they reached and successfully passed around and beyond the city of Rock Springs, black oily smoke had hung over them in the sky. They had been forced to detour more than twenty miles to the south to get around the still burning city. Even from that distance they could feel the heat, and occasionally see the flames leaping into the sky.
When they stopped that evening the glow of the fire was still visible in the distance behind them. They were both tired and dropped off to sleep before the last vibrant colors of dusk had fully faded from the sky.
The next day they traveled steadily onward through the rising mountains. The going was slower and they had to stop several times to move stalled vehicles out of the roadway.
Finally they had been stopped by the wreckage of three cars that had collided high in the Elk Mountain overpass. Joe managed to winch two of the cars out of the way, and together they had pushed the third off the roadway and over the steep rocky embankment.
They had both watched as the car careened down the side, and finally flipped off a rocky ledge disappearing from view. At the expense of a small amount of paint, which was scraped from the truck as they passed the two remaining vehicles, they managed to get up and over the high pass before nightfall.