The Boiling Point

While I was born in New York and grew up in North Dakota, there was a window in there where I lived in southern California. An Air Force brat through and through, I was there for about four years or so when I was a toddler/preschooler There's this thing I've always thought about those four years -- they must have been THE four years. As in, I swear they shaped me in weird ways that continue to this day.

Exhibit A: You guys, me and the Pacific time zone are besties. We go together like peanut butter and jelly. I don't need an alarm clock when I'm on the west coast because I naturally wake up plenty early to cope with the day. And that thing where I'm bad at going to bed before midnight? It magically vanishes. I go to bed at an almost reasonable hour when I'm away from home and in the correct time zone. And it doesn't go away as time passes. I stay a happy Pacific Time Zoner indefinitely.

Exhibit B: Gosh, I love the dry heat. I super really love it. My hair always looks good, I swear my skin is better, and I'm just plain happy. Give me 100 degrees every day, please.

So, traveling to Las Vegas with Alexis reinforced that Exhibit A and Exhibit B are still true. I still belong on the west coast and Vegas is west enough. Everything about it fits me.

Go ahead and guess who hates it, though. Go ahead. 

DING! It's this girl!

I spent an insane amount of time trying to convince her that complaining about the heat would not make it cooler. I also spent entirely too much time trying to get her to respect the clock. Every day she would be ready for bed just as it was time to hit Vegas with all we had. The party doesn't start until the sun goes down.

Alas, Alexis apparently is wired for Pittsburgh. I've never heard her complain about the heat in her hometown, which makes no sense because 85 and humid is THE ACTUAL WORST. It was around 105 degrees pretty much the entire time we were in Vegas and I was totally okay with it. I wanted lots of water and to take breaks in the air conditioning, but Alexis was MISERABLE.

So miserable.

But it was a dry heat! 

Until that day when it wasn't. Well, okay, technically it still wasn't humid, but when we found ourselves standing at Hoover Dam (every trip has to have an educational day, okay?), it was 115 degrees. Legit. 115 degrees.

Nothing is "dry" about 115 degrees because existing causes you to pour sweat. By the time we marched across the Dam and checked out a bridge and did the whole tour thing, I was drenched.

And Alexis was pissed. 

"This would be a lot more fun if we weren't walking on the sun," she reported.

"Oh, c'mon. It's still pretty cool. I'm having fun, anyway," I replied.

"MOM. NOTHING FUN HAPPENS AT 115 DEGREES. NOTHING." 

I'm not entirely sure that she's wrong.