It's Not The Heat...

"Party cloudy skies, temperature is currently 75 degrees"

Clad in wool, wind/rain shell, and scarf, I thought I must have heard the pilot wrong as we touched down at BWI. The look on my father's face when he first saw my ensemble told me I hadn't.

It's late October, and my friends are wearing shorts and sandals. I can barely breathe, I'm sweating but no fan can cool me off. It's definitely... the humidity. If you've ever lived near or in the Southeastern United States, you are probably nodding your head right now. Sweating, when sweating cannot cool you down, is a feeling of helplessness that only we can understand. Evaporation is why we sweat, it's what keeps us cool. Without evaporation our natural cooling system simply breaks down.

I'd like to believe that it's the same as when I left, but the temperature of the ocean in October reminds me that it's not a localized phenomenon, it's not the same as it used to be. The Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Maryland, in late October, is 74 degrees. Whatever change happens to our climate, if any, should not be so dramatic as to be detectable by a human within the span of a decade. It's the kind of thing you can't wrap your mind around without getting sad/nervous/angry/scared, but from this point on in my trip, for everyone's sake...

I'm thinking nothing but happy thoughts :)