YOU KNOW IT'S HOT WHEN...

You know it’s hot ... when you've driven the motorhome half the day not only with the dash air running, but the generator has been powering the house A/C all day, and the temperature inside the motorhome is 97 degrees.

You know it’s hot ... when the RV park office closes at 2:30 each afternoon because almost no one ever comes here this time of the year.

You know it’s hot ... when you turn on the cold water faucet and steam comes out.

You know it’s hot ... when your wife has just served you a nice cool drink using the last of the ice, and you knock it over with your elbow. You drive miles to the nearest ice machine, pay nearly $3 for ice, and by the time you get back to the motorhome, you’re drinking the melted ice.

Is some of that an exaggeration? Sure, some of it is, but some of it isn't! You figure out which is which!

We've been coming home to Arizona after a lovely month and a half in Oregon where, by local standards, it’s been a hot summer. We spent some more good time in Carson City and Reno, Nevada for our grandson’s birthday, then headed south. Get out your maps, kids, and follow us: Hawthorne, NV; Beatty, NV (the door to Death Valley); Pahrump, NV; Needles, CA; Tonopah, AZ. Did you notice any cooling breezes, any tall, cool waterfalls, any sheltering pine trees on that route? No, neither did we! That’s all desert country, folks.

Here in Tonopah the Weather Channel on our phones has been carrying an alert about unseasonable heat -- highs perhaps up to 112, lows over night forecast to be 79.

This is what 100+ looks like in our RV Park in Tonopah.

We are desert people, headed back to our home in the desert at Benson, Arizona.

But you know what? Benson is HOME, and home is where we are comfortable. HOME is our community. HOME is where our friends are. Some of our friends are doing well, some are having medical or other problems. Some friends are moving away, some new friends are moving in.

We just heard this morning from some friends who had moved out of our Saguaro Co-op park into a swankier park in California. They are moving back to Saguaro because the swankier park could not provide, even with a much higher buy-in price, what Saguaro offers.

As we've been traveling through hot country, we regularly check the temps in Benson. Almost always, Benson was cooler than where we were. But the forecast is that when we get back to Benson later this week, the temps will jump up to 100+. Wouldn't you know!!!

Speaking of the heat, last summer the ice maker in our motorhome’s fridge stopped working, so we bought a portable unit for $129. That baby has been making ice for us like nobody’s business. This summer we have bought just two bags of ice. (See above about the spilled drink!) In a previous trip we were buying ice at least once every two days, even with the built-in ice maker working! This contraption has paid for itself several times over. As long as we keep traveling, we’ll have one!

You know it's hot ... when all I can find to write about is how hot it is in ... Our Life on Wheels!