Since we have left Lo de Marcos, we have really noticed the change in humidity. It is so very dry. For example, today the humidity is 4%! Right on, that is extremely dry. It has taken more than a week for our noses to become acclimatized. Your nose gets dry and itchy. The tiny veins and arteries near the inside surface weep and then dry up. You end up with hard bits inside that are really annoying. Booger bits! Sometimes it can even lead to spontaneous bleeding noses. Guck. Luckily we seem to be over it with the help of a saline nose spray to keep things moist.
Driving east from Nogales is normally not a big deal. Some long hills and a couple of climbs usually are easily done. BUT...the temperature here is at record highs for this time of year. 36-37 C or 95-97 F. Hot hot hot. The motorhome engine fans have never had so much work keeping the engine from overheating. Today, I even slowed down about 4 MPH to help keep the temp down a little bit. Sometimes you don't even notice you are going uphill on a very gradual slope until the engine temperature climbs a bit and the electric fan comes on. Thankfully, the motorhome has handled it so far, but I hope it doesn't get any hotter.
The landscape consists of miles of nothing...desert desert desert, punctuated by small mountains, then more flat desert. You can understand why people don't spend a lot of time in the area with so little of interest to see. We did see something new to us today. In the distance, we would see smoke rising for a few hundred feet. We could see a few of these scattered around us. When we did got close enough to one, we discovered not smoke, but dust. Welcome to dust devils. At one point, a dust devil crossed the highway in front of us. The dust would be rising in a spiral, then as the whirling wind hit the pavement, the dust would disappear. The dust would start back up again as it devil hit the median. The same process would happen as it crossed the opposite lanes. Then we could see it swirling tumble weeds and debris in a random circle dancing across the plain. Neat to see.
Later on, the dust wasn't so much fun as it got as thick as a light fog. We didn't have to slow down but it is quite common that the dust gets so bad that you have to crawl along the highway. Sounds like Highway 400 north in the winter!
The plan on our trip homeward was on stopping a the Walton Family Campground chain (aka WalMarts) as they are conveniently located and low cost in the extreme (as in 0). After crossing the border, we stopped at the local WalMart to do a re-stocking. It was so hot in the MH that we had to run the generator to run the air conditioners, until the evening cooled off. We had a comfortable quiet evening. Hmm, the zero dollar cost really ends up being about $200 after the re-stocking, but it needed to be done somewhere.
Our second night, we staying east of El Paso at a campground because we could hook up the electrical connection and enjoy the AC without running the generator. Tonight we are doing the same to escape the heat after another hot hot day. At eight o'clock it is still 30 C or 86 F and the AC is cranking out the cool air.
Tomorrow it is supposed to cool off to more normal temps of under 70 F (20 C), then gradually start to climb higher again. So tomorrow we will have some respite from the heat and maybe stay in at the Walton Family Campground. Or not! We want to stay in touch with family so WiFi access will be important so maybe another real campground is in order. We don't usually get as lucky as we did in Nogales with free WiFi available in the parking lot, provided by an out-building restaurant. Can we be lucky again?
We will be heading to Texas Motor Speedway in north west Forth Worth for weekend to attend the NASCAR races on Friday and Saturday nights. The forecast is for scattered thunderstorms for Saturday and moderate temperatures. If you do get rain, it will be the first time we have seen precipitation since the middle of November. Wow, clouds will be something we haven't seen in months as well. We plan on arriving on Thursday at the Speedway camping area. For $75, you get to camp as long as you need but there are no hookups provided. We hope that it doesn't get too hot as everyone will want to run their generators all night so they can keep the AC on. The long range is looking OK so it should be manageable.
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