A week and a half after our trip to Palm Springs and my tan is already fading. Oh I look great to the folks who didn't have a tan to start with, those people who couldn't make it to sunny climes and still have that Pacific Northwest fish-belly white pallor. I guess that I should feel fortunate to have a tan at all.
I think that it faded a bit after my drive from the hills east of Seattle to the Whidbey Island Writer's Conference last week. We had flown in from Palm Springs the night before my drive. The flight took three hours. The drive - which should have taken 1.5 hours - took four. I walked into my class an hour late and announced "I need a bathroom and a good stiff drink."
The trip was horrendous, a white-knuckle nightmare: ice, jack-knifed semis blocking the way, snow, steep slick hills down to the ferry dock ... What a welcome home! I'm sure that about 15% of my tan faded during the drive.
