I went to Splashdown Waterpark on Sunday to beat the heat. And at that I was successful. I spent five hours in their Lazy River, and I didn’t give a moment’s thought to how hot of a day it was. I’d guess I put a lot of miles on one of their inner tubes, and had a great time doing absoluely nothing but lounging around in the water. But oh, let me tell you… I am so sunburned.
Of course, it’s not like I didn’t put sunscreen on. I did. But I think it was part a poor initial application of the sunscreen, plus the fact that I didn’t reapply at all over the course of the day. The reason I believe I put the sunscreen on poorly is because it was such a hot day. I drove down to Manassas with the A/C on, but then once I got out in the heat, I started sweating. And that made the sunscreen quite difficult to apply. Then of course, I knew I would get a sunburn on part of my back – there was a section that I couldn’t reach, and so I figured that would get burned, and took that into account.
But I didn’t expect what I got – burned on my face, both arms all the way up, my entire back, my shoulders, and part of my legs. There’s also a line on my arm where I had the key to the rental locker. And I got the classic swimsuit tan – burned except for the area that the suit was covering. I knew I should have thought better about wearing that thong (kidding!). But seriously, I am burned. And it hurts like hell. I need to go get some Solarcaine and some aloe and go to town on it.
Was the sunburn worth it? It might hurt a bit, but you know, I had a great time, so, yeah, it was worth it. At least it’s not like the burn I got on my head when we protested the Nazis. That time, I got cooked so well that it was oozing something. Nothing’s oozing this time. But the burned area is a lot bigger. But it was still worthwhile. Ah, yeah.
Hopefully it will be mostly better by Thursday, because that’s the day my mother and sister show up. My sister is back from Chicago for a week, and we’re going to have a great Thursday and Friday in DC. And I’m being a wonderful host, agreeing to suffer through being dragged through all these little designer clothing boutiques, because that’s what she wants to do. I much prefer going through Georgetown with a rowdy black bloc, but for my sister, we’ll shop. I’ll find the chair in these stores where the men sit looking miserable and park myself there. Seriously, in Chicago at the Talbots store on the Magnificent Mile, there was a cluster of chairs in the corner where all the men were sitting, and all of them looked absolutely miserable. Poor men.