Life at 100+ degrees

 We have been at our winter home in Gold Canyon, Arizona, for just over a week.  Normally, we don't arrive until the first week of September.  One year, we spent a few days here in July, waiting to fly to England.  The heat is oppressive.  The temperature has been 88 degrees when I get up about 5:30 am and 98 to 100 at 9 pm when I go to bed.

Some days we have gotten out for a walk about 6 am--temp 88.  For a couple of days, we decided to escape the heat by driving to the mall and walking there.  Not surprisingly, there are a number of other people--mainly our age--who are also walking.

Thursday,  we were there at the same time the Kid's Club was held.  Children register to take part.  They are entertained by a woman and a person in a bear? costume. It reminds me of TV programs our children watched in the 1970s--Blinky's Fun Club, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

While the children watch the Kid's Club activities, their parents can shop the mall.  Some merchants give discounts at that time.

We were both born and raised in Colorado.  We spent 3 years in the 1980s in Wisconsin.  Dressing warm to go out in the cold is something we are used to.  But walking in 88 to 95 degree heat is another matter.  We get our exercise but I think I would prefer boots and down coats to shorts and a t-shirt at 6 am.

We came to Arizona to leave our trailer.  Then we will return and move into the apartment in the south Denver area that we have rented.  We plan to spend our winters in Arizona and summers in Colorado.  Next week we will return--without the trailer--to Denver to move into our apartment.  We will probably come back to Arizona sometime in October--hopefully before the snow falls in the mountains and after the intense summer heat is gone.

Cooler Altitudes

It has been hot, really hot for Colorado and Wyoming, for the past two or three weeks. After getting settled at Peter D's RV in Sheridan we decided it was time to go somewhere cooler. That means going up, and up, and up.

Yesterday we drove up into the Big Horn Mountains west of Sheridan. We have been in this area before and we knew there was good hiking at those higher altitudes. We drove west on highway 14 as it wound it's way up into the mountains. And it really is a winding road. Look at the view of the road on our GPS.

The scenery was great as we went from 3800 ft at our campground to 8600 ft where we parked the truck.

We drove until we reached the Black Mountain Road. We decided to check out the Black Mountain Fire Lookout so we parked at the beginning of Forest Road 222, hiked one mile to the trailhead, then headed up the trail.  The road wasn't too steep, though it was rocky.

There were green meadows along the way.

It was steeper and even rockier on the trail. We finally reached a place where we could see the fire lookout station. (It is on the top of the rocks to the left of the dead branches.)

By then, we had reached an elevation of 9100 ft. We have been below 7000 ft for over a year so we settled on this view of the lookout, rather than climb another 400 ft and still have the steps to the lookout to go.

We talked to a couple coming down from the lookout. They said it was very hazy and smokey at the top and there wasn't much of a view. We could confirm that by looking out from the trail.

The hike back down was also hard. See how tired I was?

Probably thanks, in part, to the smoke from wildfires, we had a pretty sunset last night.

Time to Go?

The RV section of our resort is getting pretty empty. Look at all these available sites.

A lot of the park models have been closed up for the summer, as well. You can always tell when you see empty decks and covered automobiles.

If you are living somewhere north of Arizona and the temperatures are in the 40s or 50s and there is still a threat of snow, you might be wondering why all these spaces are empty. Here is the reason. This was our high temperature on Wednesday.

Even before it got that hot, we were told over 100 sites were to be vacated on April 1. Many snowbirds stay through Easter, then head home. April 1 was in the week after Easter. We aren't ready to move north, yet. We will be here till early May. Still more fun, turning on the lathe and other wood shop work in store for us here this spring.