Saturday, July 07, 2007

badly burned

The fourth of July is one of my least favorite holidays. This is mostly due to the fact that it is one of the hottest days of the year, but also because of people setting off fireworks outside my house all night. This fourth of July, I decided to take the family swimming, however, Portland doesn't have a lot of public pools. Locals say that people mostly go to the rivers around the area to swim.
We decided to go to the Rooster Rock state park up the Columbia Gorge. It was a really hot day even for Portland standards, and the mountain water felt pretty good. However I wasn't wearing any sun tan lotion. Since it is cloudy here 200 days a year, I thought I'd probably would be OK for a little while. I think I found myself enjoying the water so much that I lost track of time and ended up with a really bad sun burn. My whole back is about as red as a lobster. I didn't realize I was burning so bad until it was too late and we were home.
Days later, I still hurt. It's been pretty hard picking up the kids or finding a comfortable position to sleep. Yesterday was my birthday and I got a lot of "pat-on-the-backs" which have hurt like no other. I guess the sun shines as bright in Oregon as it does in Kansas.

6 comments:

shakedust said...

The sun burns I hate the most are the ones on the face. Not only do they make the skin burn, they also signal the burn to everyone else in the vicinity.

Peeling the burned skin a week later is fun, though... if you're the type to peel.

f o r r e s t said...

I dread the sun and sun burns. I have been playing it safe in my old age because I am such a moley person.

Portland wawa said...

So I can nag you about putting on suntan lotion with permission???

GoldenSunrise said...

makes my skin itch just reading about it.

roamingwriter said...

Yeah, the worst burns I think come from cloudy days because you don't feel it. I got just slightly burned at the beach and now my back is peeling. Used to be I wouldn't peel from a minor burn, I'd just tan. Guess that's old age for you.

T said...

We had rain onthe fourth. After reading your post, I'm glad that it forced us in, or I'd be crispy critter too! :)