Bring Your Own Shade

I saw a couple Indian women using parasols to shade themselves on the boardwalks during our trip to Yellowstone National Park in July.  It struck me as a brilliant, simple idea.  Bring your own shade!!!  Aha!!!   Its brilliant!

I never really put it into practice though until our trip to Colorado last month.

Well, I do keep covered with scarves and long, flowing garments whenever I can in the summer sun as I've found that to be much better at keeping me cool than stripping down to a tank top.  It also helps me not get sunburned--being the fair-skinned red headed type that I am.   But, I'd never tried a parasol of any sort before.  In fact, I don't think I ever bothered to stop and think about why one would ever carry one.  Its something I'd only seen on TV and read about in books.  I'd never thought about the pragmatics of it all.

But, as luck would have it, I'd packed two umbrellas for our Colorado trip since they'd been getting so much rain down there.  Who would have thought I'd need them to protect against the blazing sun instead?!

Matt, who is always hot, was quite pleased with the idea, I think.  We both stayed nice and comfortable as we hike around the nearly shade-less Red Rocks State Park.  I am not sure the hike would have been all that enjoyable otherwise.

We were pretty pumped about our discovery.  Sometimes its a darn good idea to bring your own shade--and so easy to do, too.   I don't think that will be a lesson soon forgotten!

Maybe I'll have to keep an eye out for an honest to goodness parasol--not that the umbrella didn't do the trick!