Too hot to go camping!

Ever since the 4th of July it’s been hot, even in our mile high desert mountain hamlet of Pine, Arizona.  By hot, we mean that it’s at least 94 degrees by noon and still getting hotter! That's pretty hot even in our cabin, since cooling here is primarily done by swamp coolers, not air conditioners.

So Dan and I have delayed camping for another week or two, since our home with a swamp cooler is much  more pleasant than the Turtle (our truck and slide-in camper) with only a fan bringing 90+ degree air into our VERY small camper as we attempt to get to sleep.

Despite the heat and having to cancel our camping trip, we have been having a wonderful July!  After all, how could we not have been having the time of our life, when we get to spend every minute of every day and night together….this is heaven for us!

How do we cope with the heat and still have adventures?

Well, we get up and head out into our beautiful world as the sun is rising.

Luckily, our cabin in Pine is surrounded by National Forests.

On the east side of town, we hike (straight) up the Good Enough Trail.  We get a good workout and are rewarded with spectacular views.

Some days we zoom up and down around Pine on our bikes.  It’s great fun and exhilarating since all of Pine is up or up and down.  And since we are out at the crack of dawn, we get to hear the birds singing and see plenty of wildlife.

Our resident elk with their summer babies:

Here is the largest herd of the local tiny Coues that we have ever seen—and we witnessed this special deer spectacle only because we were out and about in the early morning when it was very peaceful and quiet.

One of our very favorite places to head out early in the morning is to the Pine-Strawberry Trail that is just a few blocks from our cabin to the west of Pine.  We have three different loops that we like to hike on this charming magical trail.  Each loop seems more special that the others.

We often load our bikes on the back of our truck, head off only three miles away to our small neighbor city of Strawberry, and cycle before the sun gets too hot.

One day we cycled way above Strawberry on the very highest road we could find…..see the road going straight up this hill to the right of the sun!

From the top of this hill was our view of the farmland in Strawberry far below us.

Strawberry is as weird as Pine—or maybe even a little weirder.  Here is one of the local residents of Strawberry.  Yes, it is actually a zebra!

One of the things that we particularly like about riding in Strawberry is cycling way out south of town on wild mesa of Fossil Creek Road—it’s absolutely gorgeous!

Just south of Pine is the trailhead for the Arizona Trail which travels north to Utah and south to Mexico.  The Pine View Trail loop also heads off from here.  

Here we are heading out early in the morning on the Pine View Trail.  As you can see,  it’s so early that the sun hasn’t even risen all the way above the Mogollon Rim yet.

And then of course if we leave our cabin just a little earlier and drive to the Rim, we can hike and cycle in our beautiful forests and grasslands. Since it is 1000’ to 1500’ higher than Pine, it is a bit cooler even in the middle of the warmest summer on record.

And then at least once a week we take a “rest day,” and dance early in the morning on our front porch.  We have to start a bit later than we would like, after the sun is already starting to heat up our world, because we’re not sure that our neighbors want to be awakened by our beautiful, romantic music.

So you can see, as long as we get up early, we can beat the blistering summer heat and have a ton of fun and plenty of adventures.  

Then we can be home, relaxing together on our cool shaded deck by 9 am.  And soon, very soon, maybe in a week or two, the monsoons will cool off our beloved desert mountains and we’ll be out camping again!