Stay Hydrated!
Suffering from the early stages of heat exhaustion while helping Matt secure his flatbed load, Mike reflects on the recent solar eclipse that they viewed from Arizona.
Hello, this is Mike George reporting from just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. My boyfriend, Matthew, is in the process of delivering a load of giant stacks of wood that we brought from Chehalis, Washington. I just helped him un-tarp the wood to enable the unloading at the receiving facility—I think it’s about 50,000 lbs of wood.
Matthew was observant and caring enough to let me know I was starting to go into the early throes of heat exhaustion while helping him unload. I would guess it's about 35-38° (~100°F) out here. Heat exhaustion is real, y’all, so that’s a good safety contact for today. I’ve got a hard hat on; we have to wear PPE on this site so that no big chunks of wood hit me in the face or head.
From our perspective in Phoenix, Arizona, we caught the partial solar eclipse. I think it was about 60% covered from the rest stop where we were. Matt and I didn't have any glasses, but a really awesome gentleman who was chilling there was kind enough to lend us one of his pairs of special eclipse viewing glasses. We were able to view the partial eclipse in all of its glory.
Because of the nature of the partial eclipse, we also saw the phenomenon where the shadows of tree leaves—acting as pinholes for the sunlight—created neat little crescent moon-shaped shadows on the sidewalk. I’ll put some photos up; that’s probably the most impressive photo I have of the event. I tried to take a picture with my phone through the glasses, but nothing really impressive came of that. It's been cool seeing everyone’s Facebook lives and posts from their unique perspectives.
I was surprised at how quickly the eclipse passed through. I had been looking at different ETAs for the event from Portland to Charleston, South Carolina, but I forgot to account for time zone changes, so the event was much shorter than I initially thought. I think by this point, most of you have probably seen it.
Aside from that, it’s been a fun adventure. Matt and I just spent the weekend in Palm Springs, California, which I recently learned is in California, not Florida, and is an oasis in the middle of the desert, not a beach! I had confused it with West Palm Beach my entire life. It was a really cool time, and I want to give a shout-out to Skip Lang for graciously hosting us in his beautiful condo. It’s a neat, small city of about 50,000 people, and it’s very queer-dense. We rode the Tramway up the hill; it was incredible.
I don’t even know if you guys can hear me—I just realized the air conditioner is running full blast, and I’m not talking into my headphones. Let me take a little intermission to see if this is even working, and we'll report to you later. Toodles!
