The Story of a Sunburn

Currently my poor shoulders look like this:

You’d think a fair-skinned girl would learn to wear sunscreen after 25 years. Somewhere my poor mother is shaking her head.

Moving on, let’s talk about where these two distinct and equally painful burns came from.

Saturday morning I ran a local 5k with my co-worker Julie. It was her first race ever so I signed up on a whim two days before to be her official cheerleader.

The race, the Speedy Skunk Run, was held at Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park. The park is a Civil War battle site about twenty minutes west of Fayetteville and, consequently, where the Clotheline Craft Fair is held every year.

The race was pretty small (only a few hundred runners maybe?) and the weather was perfect. Julie was pretty nervous, but she finished strong and I was so proud of her. Here we are at the finish line.

Our friend (and co-worker) Marlo and her husband rode their bikes out to the park to cheer us on at the finish.

I had wrongly assumed the course would be in the shady park, but actually it was mostly on a (very sunny with no shade) country road in a field.

And so the weekend sunburn saga began…

After the race I stopped by the Farmers’ Market and then made my way home to work on our front landscaping beds.

After a few hours in the hot,  hot sun (again, sans suncreen. I knowwww). The yard went from this

to this:

Much better, right?

On Sunday, I picked up Betsy and we headed to the 2nd Annual Block Street Block Party, which is a huge street festival on Fayetteville’s, you guessed it, Block Street.

It seemed like everyone in town was in attendance, so we mingled and shopped for several hours in the (you guessed it, hot sun).

Eventually, we ran into these two jokers.

We also found Anna and sweet baby Amelia.

Diva, for sure.

Greek sampler platter and a Summer Shandy. Perfect festival grub.

Of course we had to continue our tradition of asking strangers to take our awkward photos.

And finished the day with a strawberry shortcake crepe from a food truck.

All in all, a well-earned sunburn wouldn’t you say?