Roaming Free In An RV

It is mid-October in Arizona and we thought it would be much cooler, but it’s still in the mid- 90s. That’s better than 110 but it’s still hot. Even at 9:00 in the morning, it’s hot. On the positive note, the hottest part of the day is shorter—only a couple hours instead of all day —and it’s cooler at night. In the evenings, we have been able to eat dinner outside or go on a walk once the sun is down. We bought a small charcoal grill and have been using that quite a bit instead of turning on the oven. I don’t think it has been turned on since we got here in June. LOL!

We still haven’t explored as much as we’d like because of the heat. We hope that will be changing in the next few weeks. I’m itching to take photos with my camera! We are staying in this beautiful area and I haven’t been able to get out to capture the scenery. In the last few weeks I did get to particulate in two photography events in the Phoenix area which was a great experience. I met some wonderful and talented artists and connected with some local photographers. I hope to get out with them for a camera shooting event soon.

What else have we been up to? I took a part-time job to get me out of the house while Brad is working and to keep cool. I am happy to have something to do and I get in tons of steps, a huge bonus! Brad also has a new job, but more details about that at a later time.

Brad’s only brother got married this month. I went to Chicago the week prior to visit my family and then met Brad in Cleveland for the wedding. The wedding was beautiful and it was great to catch up with family and friends. It was amazing to see how much different fall in the Midwest is from Phoenix. Leaves were changing colors. At orchards, people were picking apples and drinking hot cider. Farms were selling pumpkins. The weather was chilly, partly cloudy, and windy. Sometimes being in sunny Arizona we forget that the rest of the US is experiencing the fall season.

Brad and I had been told that during the summer the desert likes to produce an intense dust storm, called a haboob. Basically, everything looks fine outside and then all of a sudden, a huge brown formation moves in. It’s one of the weirdest things we have seen! The winds can become intense, going from 20 mph to 65 mph quickly. The haboob can be very wide (up to 62 miles) and tall. The first time we saw one was on our way back from Canyon Lake where we’d been exploring. We received an alert on our phones, looked up, and could see an haboob in the distance. We were not actually in the storm, just observers from afar.

The next time we saw one we actually where in the haboob. Yikes! We were out running errands one evening and then all of a sudden, the air was brown around us. It was like being in a snowstorm but it was dusk instead. Visibility was low so we drove slowly. Luckily, we were close to the RV so we didn’t have to travel far. The weird part was once we got close to our campground and were no longer in the haboob, it just looked stormy. Sometimes at night we can see a storm forming and then see the dirt blowing around. Looking closely at a street light, we can see the dust.

I think that is it for now everyone! We’re keeping out fingers crossed that it cools down here soon! Hopefully the next blog post will be about some awesome new adventure we took.

Till then!