I just might be buying into the theory that Hell is really here on Earth.
Since Friday, most of the Northwest has been in an almost unprecedented heat wave. Really. A blazing heat wave, in frigging April. Today--right now at 5:30pm--it's 87 degrees outside, and 84 where I'm sitting at my laptop, sweat running down my temples into the cold cloth around my neck, as I try to offset the effects from 279% humidity.
I have clarified some things for myself during this experience however: I don't like to sweat unless it's for a darned good reason, one usually requiring a partner. Second, being born in Alaska, spending many years in Seattle, and many more in Scotland, I realize I not only can't take this kind of heat, I don't want to. I need the cool, the refreshing, possibly even the chilly. That's not to say I don't like a sunny day...I do, I just don't want to suffer from heat stroke to enjoy one.
The other night I saw an advert on television about vacationing in Colorado, one of the few states I haven't spent any time in. I sent for the Guide, which arrived on Friday, the day the NW caught fire. It's a beautiful magazine. I'm now dreaming of those 14ers, those cold mountain streams, the rushing rivers, and wishing for a clear, fresh breath of air. I may have shifted my focus--once I get the house sold--to Colorado, Montana, perhaps even back to the beginning, to Alaska. Or hey, how about the Russian Steppes? The North Pole? Frigging Iceland?
I don't know yet. The heat has made me slightly delirious and I'll have to think things through when this Scorched Earth phase is over--sometime around Thursday, I hear.
Well, that's better than eternity, I suppose.
Colorado's a pretty awesome place, and the fact, with the exception of three and a half years of adolescence in North Carolina, I've been here my entire life has nothing to do with my endorsement. Although, it's been a dry, dry, winter and a preternaturally warm spring here as well...I'd loath to be anywhere below six-thousand feet come summer. Things are changing, and have changed.
ReplyDeleteI'm already dreading Summer here, especially after these past few days of heat and humidity. It just doesn't work for me...or the boys, who lay gasping on the floor like they've just run across the Sahara.
DeleteOf all the states and countries and oceans--and being a girl from the West--I find it surprising I've never been to Colorado, other than the time I stood on that medallion at Four Corners. It makes it more difficult to narrow things down when I don't have a clue what a particular place really looks/feels like. The only thing I'm certain about: it won't be Denver.
Clearly, a road trip will be in order at some point.