Jefferson Daniels sat on the back porch and looked out over the Great Basin, shooing away the sand flies. "No, this used to be a very popular place for sportsmen two hundred years ago. There's little left to attract them now. It was the population boom that did it, going into the twenty first century." He reached over and turned on the electronic repellent to scatter the insects and drive them from the house.
      "What in the world would attract them here?" asked Greg Hemstet.
      "Oh, this used to be a very lush section of the country."
      "Oh, come on. This is nothing but desert."
      "It is now, but it was once a great swamp, especially to the south."
      "You mean the Great Salt Flats?" Greg asked, disbelieving.
      "Yes. It's all under saltwater now, but before the great warming, it was a swamp called the Everglades. Little did they know that it would not last forever when they named it. But the melting of the polar caps raised the sea level, and the saltwater took over. There were trees and brush and grasses for miles and miles. In fact, the whole peninsula was green and lush." Jeff informed.
      "And the great warming stripped that away?"
      "No, not entirely. Part of it was the warming, but a great deal of it was the fact that the peninsula became a very popular place to live. The winters were much milder than those up the coast. But the water needed for that population came mainly from lakes and the vast aquifer."
      "What aquifer?"
      "There used to be one. But when the warming started, it shifted the tropical jet stream that used to come from across Mexico and the Gulf from the Pacific and shifted it northward toward Texas. Did you know that West Texas used to be an arid land?"
      "You're kidding me." scoffed Greg.
      "No. Really. It was mostly scrub brush and mesquite."
      "But it's so lush."
      "That's the way it used to be here. But there is the reverse trade winds of the Pacific, and that directs the moisture laden jets in that direction now. But it was once an unusual phenomenon called El Niño, and it only came during winter. But as the great warming progressed, aggravated by the decimation of the Brazilian rain forests of the past, now another vast desert, as you know, it became a yearly event, and soon became constant, as it is now. It's caused by the water temperature rising, and that shifts the wind circulation. So the moisture that used to constantly flow from the Pacific to here turned north, and the annual rainfall of the peninsula dropped drastically, especially in summer when the Bermuda high took hold.
      "At the same time, wells were put in all over and dropped the water level. With the reduced rainfall no longer replenishing it, and intensive draw of water from underground to supply the booming populace, the lakes and underground water supply vanished. The aquifer, drawn dry, then collapsed without the water to float it. What didn't collapse, became inundated with saltwater. The heating began to dry the soil, and much of the vegetation that needed a wet climate to survive vanished from the area. With the loss, fires became common, and there was a lot of burn off of the nutrients of the soil. The loam turned to sand with the loss of the bacteria."
      "Amazing." muttered Greg.
      "And the coastline was a huge tourist attraction. Huge cities of millions of people. The population went inland when the water gave out and the sea level rose to claim these cities."
      "The Lost Towers of the Atlantic legend."
      "It's more than just legend. There was a stretch a hundred miles long of urban sprawl. Miami, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Pompano Beach, Delray Beach, and many towns connecting them together. Water loss, the rising sea level and the shift of the hurricanes northward that used to go into the gulf and strike Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi all the time made living there impossible for people to endure. Now there is only the thin strip of dry land bordering the Great Salt Flats on the east. It's nothing but sand now."
      "The Key Chain."
      "Yes, but it's name was taken from a series of islands that are now underwater that used to border the flats on the south. They are all gone now. Those were called the Keys. As the water rose, and the strip east of the flats narrowed, it became called the Key Chain. Keys and key chain."
      "I got you. This is amazing. What was the history of the Great Basin here?"
      "It was a lake named Okeechobee." Jeff stated.
      "What?"
      "Indian name."
      "Oh. Pretty big lake?"
      "Outside of the Great Lakes, it was the largest natural lake in the country." Jeff noted.
      "A lake that big drying up?"
      "Oh, yes. It was relatively shallow, hardly deeper than twenty feet, and most of it was less than four or five feet. Now it's just a big dish of sand now that catches heat from the sun. But it was once the premiere bass lake of the country."
      "Hard to believe."
      "Yes, but I found the hull of an old boat last year."
      "A boat hull? How long?" inquired Greg.
      "Oh, fifteen feet or so. Wide and shallow, made to be mostly deck. The design allowed for walking about and fishing with a lot of stability."
      "Hard to imagine."
      "The desert took only a hundred and fifty years to make. There were still settlements in the center of the peninsula. They tried desalination, but terrorists kept destroying the pipelines, and they finally faded out about sixty years ago. Most of that area surrounded a big amusement park. They had a lot of money, but the desert was just too much for people to cross to get to it, and the money dried up, and they relocated in Georgia. After that, there was nothing to keep anybody there." Jeff relayed.
      "They couldn't keep it up like the western desert tourist traps?"
      "No. This one was family oriented. The western desert traps are adult oriented. People didn't want to drag their kids into a desert."
      "Ah. Are there any settlements still alive away from the mainland?"
      "There are a few on the Gulf coast, but they're what you'd call outlaw oriented. Other than that, you don't see much except government posts and archaeologist camps. It's something to watch the big blowers in action. It's amazing what people left behind. The big news last year was the Akeland site. A big sand storm blew up and uncovered the city dump. They had a field day."
      "I can imagine." grinned Greg.
      Katherine came out of the concrete structure, bearing a tray of drinks that she set on the table. "I hope you don't plan on staying long out here. The forecast looks like another 120 day. You have about another forty five minutes before you start to sweat sitting still. I heard you two talking history. Jeff's favorite spiel, talking about how millions of people used to live here. Now all it gets are crazy people and the poor fools like us paying off their college loans, stuck in these remote weather stations. Nobody else will man them."
      "How long do you have left?" Greg asked, accepting the drink.
      "I have another five months. Jeff has another nine months. He's an idiot if he thinks I'm going to sit here an extra four months waiting for him to finish. He'll just have to be lonely with whomever they send out to replace me. I'm not going to stay one day longer than absolutely necessary, looking at that monster of a sand pit. I don't care if used to be a lake. There's certainly no water in it now. Nothing but heat to make nice ripples in your eyes. If you come out in the heat of the day, it looks like a lake. You can envision what it must have been like, though not for long. The heat will fry your brains." she professed.
      "So what do you do, spend most of your time inside?"
      "Yes. It's cold at night, but that is better than the heat. You have maybe nine hours a day you can stand to be outside. Only three of those are with daylight. You're lucky you came calling first thing in the morning. I hope that you're not planning to leave until tonight."
      "I was warned to travel only at night." Greg admitted.
      "You'll see why in an hour. If you don't have a shelter, it's deadly out here. We've measured temperatures as high as 140 , and we're only fifteen miles from salt water."
      "I thought it was further than that."
      "There's an inlet where a swamp used to be." noted Jefferson. "The main body of water is about twenty eight miles away. Used to be about thirty five before the big melt. It gets really hot when we have westerly winds coming in off of the basin."
      "So where do you plan on going, Kathy?"
      "Beach front property in Houston. Well, not in Houston. Only a fool would live in the city itself. South a few miles at a little resort town called Rosharon on Brazos Bay. Close enough to the city without being in it. I'm going where it loves to rain, floods be damned."
      "I don't think I'd blame you."
      "Jeff will be joining me when he finishes his term. Serves him right for taking extra courses. He can sit here and talk about history. I'm going where there are hunks in swim trunks flexing their muscles. Well, I'm going back inside. You two can enjoy the growing heat while I fix lunch inside. I hope you like seafood."
      "I love it."
      "It's what we get most of the time. After a while, you get to wanting real meat. Not much of that here. Steak is a huge luxury we get twice a year, and it's not that good, but I don't care if it's half gristle. It's beef, not fish. Will you be starting after you eat?"
      "Yes. It shouldn't take too long. Jeff said you only had the one problem with the radar."
      "I think it's heat inversion over the basin, not a problem with the system itself. But everything else is working fine. And who needs radar here? Like it's going to rain?" She waved at the blue sky and went inside the station.
      "It is starting to get warm." Greg noted.
      "Yes. I guess I've grown a bit used to it after all these months. We can go inside if you like and look over the radar."
      "Well, I was thinking about maybe giving the rest of the station a quick inspection. It won't take but half an hour at most for a diagnostic in detail. Then we could spend the rest of the day looking at the radar. I don't like stopping just as I'm getting started. If it is something like heat inversion, it could take some time to arrange the proper filters. If it's not, then I'd want to start checking circuits." said Greg.
      "Okay. It's your show. You're the professional." Jeff admitted.
      "I've never pulled desert duty before. Some of this may be new to me. I've never worked on instruments with sand shielding before. Oh, look, I can start to see the mirage of water in the basin."
      "Yeah. I guess we'd better get on inside for the day. I usually spend as much daylight outside as I can. Living in a concrete box is not what I'd call ideal. Even the sand is preferable to all my time inside."
      They rose and stretched, and went inside for the rest of the day, leaving the view of the Great Florida Desert behind them.