Why Summertime is the Harshest Time of the Year in Denver

Why the summer time is harsh and breathing is hard. It is not pollen that makes one suffer. It is the unrelenting heat. It is the dry air that chokes you and makes you gasp. It is the wheezing at the dust settles in your lungs and there is no relief. Summer used to be a time to be outside but now there is no Ultra violet protection that is sufficient to guard against cancer. The wind, the air, the light and the dryness batter your eyes. There is no protection from the feet that itch and cause fungus. The dry air cracks the skin and leaves one scrambling for gloves to keep on all night with ointment. The unrelenting sun with no rain and moisture that allows the water to evaporate before it touches the earth, the desolate waves of heat that make one see and smell the desert, where no water is enough to quench the thirst of hungry plants and deciduous trees, that have no place in a high desert.

Before I lived in Tucson, Arizona and that was dry and desolate. We planted Saguaros because they gave a change of the scenery in the tempest of the air. We planted what thrived in a place with no mercy and we stayed out of the sun. There is no respite for the climate that is warming and gauging that this is only the beginning the temperatures that will be like Yuma, where there is never relief.

The territorial prison was built in Yuma to keep the prisoners inside like Gila monsters.
Never worry that you escape because if you left the likelihood of death was a certainty.

Compare this with the snow and ice. In the winter at least we have a reprieve now and then from the heat. It is not necessary to shovel and scrape snow every day. The trouble is that the winter too, is shrinking and the time when one can plant and grow flowers is nearly year round. Alas, there is no place on earth that is left where the temperatures are consistently calm and pleasant. Where there is a lack of tumultuous storms and the land is like a wind swept field of lupine.