It's a Dry Heat

The sky has been very clear since we got here, making the sunsets less than spectacular. So yesterday, when there was a little cloud cover, I took advantage of the reflection to take the above picture from the deck of the house. Yesterday I was surprised to learn that the temperature hit 100 degrees at the peak of the day. We were out in it and I wouldn't have thought it went over the high 80's. The humidity was 5%. Now understand it was hot, in the sun you felt like a bug under a magnifying glass, but the discomfort I would have felt back home at that temperature just wasn't there. Back home, I'd have walked out the door and felt a blast of suffocation. Here, it just felt hot. There really is something to this "dry heat" thing.

We've been following the news of the wildfires burning in Arizona right now. The national news is about useless but the local out of Phoenix does a pretty good job, much like our storm coverage back home. Right now, there are five wildfires burning. At least the two largest are out of control. The one nearest to us is the Gladiator fire, the nearest town to it is Crown King which was named for the Crowned King Mine. So far, it's burned two houses, a trailer and over 1700 acres of land. It's zero contained. It's about 50 miles South of us but we can clearly see the smoke. That's like standing in Burlington and seeing a fire in Raleigh. There was also a smaller fire yesterday about five miles away but that was quickly contained and confined to about 30 acres. The big problem is the wind which has been blowing strongly and steadily since before the fires started.

I picked up the motorhome from the repair service today. They seem to have repaired the cooling issue. It was confined to the bent radiator hose and once the water flow was corrected, the engine is cooling about as well as it can. I still can't climb hills any better than I was but the more level ground goes OK. I test drove it for about 20 miles today with the mechanic on board. He was able to listen to the engine under load with the cover lifted and determined that the exhaust gasket to the number 5 cylinder is blown out. So while I have the rig back for a few days, I'll take it back in next week for some exhaust system work. I have to face the fact that the engine is being asked to move more weight than it really wants to. It will remain a challenge in the West but we'll be OK once we get back East of the Mississippi.