Monday, June 27, 1994 was an historic date in Midland, Texas, as we recorded our all-time record high temperature of 116\u00b0 (that’s 46.7\u00b0 C for those of you forced to work with that weird scale!).<\/p>\n
I remember it well, as I went for a bicycle ride just to see what it was like. That was when I was still working a regular 9-to-5 job (except it was actually more like 7-4) and thus was routinely riding in 90\u00b0+ temps. I thought I was pretty well acclimated to the heat, but after going out in 116 (coupled with 15-20 mph winds), I realized that it’s probably not possible to get acclimated to exercising in that kind of temperature range.<\/p>\n
I could dig up the records if I wanted, but my recollection is that I rode only about 12 miles or so, about 30% less than my usual daily route. I can remember that the hot wind was perceptibly skin-crackling and what began as ice-cold water in my plastic bottle was beyond tepid after less than a mile. The pop of tar bubbles as my tires rolled over our crushed graveled streets duplicated the feeling and sound of riding on an endless layer of bubble wrap.<\/p>\n
My hat goes off those those souls who routinely work — and excel — in such conditions. I’m thinking specifically to those serving in the military in Iraq, and those serving here at home as firefighters.<\/p>\n
By the way, we’re anticipating a coooool 97\u00b0 this afternoon. Nothing like a mild summer in west Texas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recollection of a 116° day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5757,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions\/5757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}