LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos! Sudden Death Write Off! - Open Topic

It is hot. My body doesn’t feel like it is overheating, but the sun on my skin feels powerful. I hope that the sunblock I applied was enough. I need to keep moving, rather than trying to soak more of this up. One week in beloved places is going to need to be enough.

The car is pretty much packed. The tent coiled and curled around itself in its little container. The cooler re-iced, chairs broken down in bags and the shade umbrellas folded back into spears wrapped in fabric. It is a few hours before noon, but I am wrapped in sunblock and sunglasses and a hat with an integral neck shade flap. My sweat has completely soaked through the neck shade flap. I am trying not to burn. But there is a part of me that feels like everything I care about is on fire.

I tell my daughter that I’ve got to get one last snorkel in, but that I will make it quick since she is done with salt water swimming for this trip. She should hang out with my sister and help her pack up her site. I don’t want to leave, but if I start driving today, I can have a full day at home before the work week starts. I actually haven’t been checking in on work at all this week. A true vacation (although people had my number if something had really gone down). Still, I can’t shake the feeling that too much is on fire.

We watched lightning in the clouds through the mesh of the tent ceiling every night this trip. It was always off in the distance. The only rain we experienced was the day we went out to the reef, when we were caught in a shower a couple of miles off the seven mile bridge. That isn’t normal weather for summertime in the keys. Usually at least a few squalls blow through camp.

The water didn’t feel crazy-hot this year, though. When we went out to the reef, you didn’t have to dive six or seven feet down to feel cooler water. And the reef looked hopeful. Yes, there was plenty of bleaching. But there were healthy looking corals, too. And so much diversity in terms of fish. Is it possible that we can still turn this around? Why on earth aren’t we trying harder?

I get in my packed car and drive down to the little public sandspur beach that is just east of the campground. The radio reminds me that another beloved place, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, is still very much on fire and that fire is growing, still. I think about the vanilla smell of the Ponderosa pines out there and the sound of the cool wind through the aspen. Dragon Bravo is now the biggest fire of 2025. It is creating its own weather. We are literally on fire.

I change into my suit in the unairconditioned bathhouse on the beach. It is a struggle in this heat. I was closer to an ideal weight when I bought this top. Now I feel like I’m blowing up. This morning, North Florida Women’s called me and left a message about my upcoming appointment this week. I don’t know if there is really anything more than the precancerous lower intestinal growth (already removed) wrong in my abdominal cavity, but I’m trying to troubleshoot my health a little more thoroughly this year. Aging is weird and not for the weak. I’m heavy and having trouble slimming down despite getting back to a decent running routine. My hormones are easy to blame. They definitely seem to be firing off in their own directions a lot lately.

Back to the car, back down to the water where the sun is high enough now that the sandy spots are starting to show up as Caribbean blue. Out over the straights of Florida, big cumulus clouds are building and it looks like the same is true on the gulf side. Maybe this afternoon there will be rain. I drop everything but mask and snorkel above the wrack line and step gingerly through the sargassum out to the water that I fall into as soon as it is knee deep. Last submersion of the trip. There always has to be one.

I kick out- feet feeling free without fins. And observe the nearshore grassy bottom and hard bottom communities one more time. Water clarity has gone down some over the course of the week, but it is still beautiful. Goodbye grass meadows and algaes and conchs and cowfish. I do my best to soak it in and still make it quick.

It’s 600 plus miles from here to home, and that is a lot of combustion.