Out of the Frying Pan into the Convection Oven

Buoyed by such hopeful outlook, we arrived at the gate where we were greeted by a meticulously coiffed creature whose real face was perfectly masked by inordinate number of layers of professionally applied makeup. He/she/it was over-the-top nice, swooshing the supersized eyelashes up and down, creating a bit of a welcome breeze, then took our money with flair. In return we were lavished with not just a couple of hours but a full week of unlimited access to the aforementioned place that rhymes with 'well'.

We were almost at our final destination.

Our resident optimist pointed out that there is still plenty of parking spots in the Village parking lot A. This was immediately balanced by our resident pessimist’s assessment of intellectual properties of the people who choose to visit the park on the hottest day on record.

We swung open the doors, slamming instantly into the solid wall of Arizona’s other-worldly heat. 

Having lived in sub-tropical climate for the past twenty years, one can say that I am rather well adjusted to hot weather. In fact, I love it! But this heat was nothing like what I’ve experienced in Florida.  Our heat, if I dare to brag, is nice, steamy hot and 90% humid. The kind of heat that makes you drenched in sweat after two seconds of just standing there, ridding your body of toxins better than Miralax. The heat that makes you feel like you’ve done a two-hour intense aerobic workout without even lifting a finger.  The heat where you can cook spaghetti without ever opening the box!

I love Florida heat-and-humid combo. It’s like getting two for the price of one.

But, as I said, Arizona heat is nothing like Florida.

If Florida feels more like sauna, Arizona is more like a convection oven. The moment our feet touched the ground we were enveloped by bone-marrow drying temperatures matching the surface of the Sun. It was coming at us from above and below and all around. It felt like stepping inside a crisper sleeve of the hot pockets. I could feel the entire surface of my skin turning into beef jerky as we were walking through the heat wall across the parking lot.

All I could think of was that I did not want my family to be remembered for being baked to a crisp in our foolhardy pursuit of wonder-lust.

A tiny voice reached from afar and yanked me back from dangling over the brink of the abyss.