I'm from the Bay Area too about 3 years ago as well. I know what you mean about the fresh fog smell. Except it wasn't too fresh during low tide! I live near Tacoma now, thank goodness the lumber mills are gone. I visited here years ago when they were still here and there was definatley an 'Aroma of Tacoma.' You can catch whiffs of the lumber mill smell when you drive through Kalama. Also in the Bay Area there were some lumber mills out in Antioch and it always reeked out there especially when the tulle fog rolled in from the valley.

Here is an interesting article I remember reading from last year:

Here is a link that might be useful: Holidays In The Sound

You could be smelling the Camas WA paper mill. It does smell somewhat like rotting cabbage.

Instead of lumber mills I meant to say paper mills. Duh. Everyone knows paper mills smell weird.

I was driving through north Portland last night on I-5 past Delta Park, and there was a very strong solvent smell. Somebody isn't playing by the rules.

The mills are gone because the wood is being exported without being fully processed here. The processing jobs, and the jobs they supported went with the mills. And our forests still got leveled. I'm not sure goodness was involved.

Well good point bboy.
I might be smelling the paper mill in Oregon City too. Those paper mills seem pretty odoriferous. I think since it happens when the weather is still though, that it's probably something more local. Like sewage in the Willamette. Hopefully the big pipe project will help with that.

Speaking of solvent smells, here is an embarrassing story. I hired a local roofing company to re-coat my garage roof with a sealer, & they were supposed to call me before they came out. Well, they didn't. I came home & smelled this unbelievably strong solvent smell, & so did my neighbor. We became convinced that it could be a meth lab smell & we decided to call the fire department. They were great & investigated quite thoroughly, but found nothing. It was only a few days later, when I got the bill from the roofing company, that I realized they had come & done the work while I was not home, & the smell had been coming my own roof. OY! I was pretty mad at the roofing company for making me waste taxpayer dollars.

That "aroma of Tacoma" was funny.

Actually, I was near an entryway today, and could smell something odd from dampness on Miscanthus grass. Same kind of thing in Portland. It can just be that time of year when moisture sits on deteriorating foliage, like grasses and perennials.

M. D. Vaden

www.turftotrees.com

When the wind blows the right way I can smell the Camas paper mill at my house in outer SE Portland and I'm glad it doesn't happen very often. It reeks. Very distinctive smell.

Tacoma still stinks. I think it's Commencement Bay.

Paper mills are not bad. They smell, and they pollute if you don't keep on them, but as bboy says, we lost the mill jobs but we're still cutting down the trees too ... all going overseas intact to be milled there. Are we a third world country here or what?? Bring back the mills, and stop exporting raw logs and mill jobs!

Years ago a friend used to play the Frank Zappa album Sheik Yerbouti. A song from it which I think was released as a single contained the words

With a garlic aroma
That would level Tacoma