It's Too Damn Hot

Do we all have to be inside cats now?

I have a list of things I want to do by the end of the summer (next week) and I finally crossed a big one off the list yesterday. We managed the first half of CreekQuest where we navigated the Westkill Creek from our house halfway to Spruceton Inn. It was weirdly exhausting walking through the creek and also strangely exhilarating because it is a whole new vantage point to the valley we’ve lived in for five years now. Deer splashed right in front of us. The baby fell asleep.

We found crayfish and trout and tiny fish tickled our toes. It was also good and tiring and everyone slept damn well last night.

But it was also a fairly mild day today, with temps in the low eighties and ultimately the seventies and then a little rain, a rarity this summer

We turned the last of week of my book tour into a road trip with the kids from Harrisburg, PA to Crozet, Virginia and then back up through D.C. I’ll post the whole itinerary soon. But first, something that hit me hard while traveling. IT IS TOO DAMN HOT. And no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Our first stop was Hershey Park outside of Harrisburg. The temps were just below 100 when we entered the park in the morning. Now I grew up outside of Philly and I remember summers being hot, but bearable hot, the kind of hot that could be fixed with a garden hose and a cheap Slip n’ Slide on the gravelly grass.

The heat in Hershey made it completely unenjoyable. In fact most days outside have been hellish so far this summer.

As we drove South through Virginia we tried different roadside stops and adventures that inevitably ended in ice cream because everyone was boiling after an hour outside.

We are a family that loves the outdoors, but being outdoors is getting harder and harder. Next year we want to send our oldest to summer camp for a couple of weeks, but we are already concerned about whether it will just be too damn hot unless we ship him off to the great North.

Driving home we listened to an episode of The Daily about how Trump is eliminating the scientific finding at the heart of the government’s ability to fight climate change in the first place. Literally erasing facts.

It’s worth a listen.

We know that being outside and off of screens is good for everyone, not just kids, but if our world gets hotter and hotter and hotter are we all going to have to become indoor cats?

I am increasingly worried that climate policy is being dictated by old greedy men who only go outdoors to golf, and even then only do it when the temps are palatable. At this point it’s hard to tell if they are simply in permanent denial or are literally enjoying watching the world burn because it somehow “owns the libs”. That is to say, to take any sort of action would be “woke”. God forbid. They are sitting there like bond villains counting their money and cackling.

I am reintroducing a one year free gift of this substack when you buy a new copy of Everyone is Lying to You for you or a friend. Keep spreading the word and leaving all the good reviews. It helps so much and keeps this book going.

Here is the Amazon link. I know it is often the easiest one. This is a list of more purchasing options, but it is also available at a lot of indie bookstores. Keep the orders coming!!!