My Summer Vacation - Burned Eyeballs

granite
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

While in Yosemite, the missus and I splurged on a guided hike, which turned out to be one of the best investments we made. The guide was great, and he took us off the path over the granite mountain pictured here. (A glacier left those boulders behind about ten thousand years ago!)

For the hike, the lodge (through which we booked the guide) recommended plenty of sunscreen, good shoes, water, lunch, snacks, and the like.

The final item on the list was sunglasses. I didn't happen to own a pair of sunglasses, so before we reached Yosemite (while in Santa Cruz), we stopped in many shops looking for good shades. They were all pretty awful. And not just for vanity reasons. They were overpriced and crappily made. In retrospect, I feel as though I should've forseen this, considering they were sunglasses available for purchase in a beachfront town. I got to the hike without having found any sunglasses. The guide wasn't overly concerned. It was a matter of comfort over necessity.

Right. So notice how there are only a few trees in the picture? The hike took place between 8,300 and 8,800 feet. Thinner air, fewer trees, and little sun protection. But, you know, I was lathered with SPF 50 Ultra Sweatproof, so no real worries.

Yes, the hike was simply amazing. Spectacular landscape. A series of lakes, one of which had granite stones that allowed for "walking on water." We waded out more than 100 feet from the shore on the stones. The water was cold. Snow melt. But it felt great.

I squinted my way through without sunglasses and blissed out in nature. We saw three other people the entire day, and it felt like we had Yosemite all to ourselves.

When we got back to the lodge, my eyes were bothering me. Sort of like when my contacts irritate, and yet decidedly different. It hurt to take the lenses out. I took a close look at my eyes, and I saw pink horizontal stripes going across the whites. Except in this millimeter-sized area that my contacts had previously covered.

To confirm my suspicion, I squinted in the mirror as if the sun was shining in my eyes. The stripes matched up. My eyeballs were sunburned.

I thought maybe the pink stripes were just a remarkable coincidence until I remembered a day of snow skiing about twenty years ago, during which I had forgotten to wear sunglasses for half the day. The same thing had happened.

So, dear B&E readers, the sun will burn your eyeballs. Apparently, instead of lathering your eyeballs full of sunscreen, you should wear sunglasses. I bought a pair the day we left Yosemite. By then of course it was too late. But my eyeballs recovered relatively quickly, and I love my new sunglasses. If I add a mustache, I'll look like a cop.