#20 / 2003 Tour 2: Traveling the desert

THE DESERT AT NIGHT 

#20

The VW bus has served us well as we speed across America. After a quick stop in Georgia and New Mexico to catch up with some dear friends, we have booked across the deserts of New Mexico straight into the deserts of Arizona and Nevada.

Somewhere I got the impression, even in the summertime, that the desert got cold at night. We spent one night in front of an Albertson’s grocery store in Boulder City before heading out to Lake Mead, Being frugal as possible we didn’t want to pay a full day for a campsite we would only use one night, so we parked to wait until morning.

Joe made a comment that night that if we hadn’t found each other, we probably never would have found anyone else as willing as the two of us are to suffer for travel’s sake. That night in Albertson’s lot was a struggle, it was so hot and we hesitated to put up the window in the back of the bus. So we were in a stifling van with little air flow. It was hot, but we thought Lake Mead would be much easier on us.

Sure it’s gonna get hot in the daytime, but at night everything cools off, right? I thought it was something about the atmosphere in the desert, hot in the daytime but cold at night. Boy, were we wrong.

I was prepared for it to be hot, the Las Vegas news anchor said it was 111 degrees at Lake Mead that day. We had tarps set up all around, stayed in the bus and napped, dreaming of when the sun went down and we could go jump into Lake Mead. Sun went down, we headed down to the water, but found the muddy and rocky bottom of the lake too nasty to swim in and too painful to walk on. We pulled our lounge chairs up to the water’s edge and rested contentedly as we watched dusk turn to night.

But nothing ever cooled down. The bath house had no shower, it was scorching in there, and the only water was the spickets down the path from our campsite. The water was hot all night long.

It was easy enough to a degree to cool ourselves down, but the sheets in the van were still 110 degrees at 10pm. Oh yeah, the wind kicks up at night, but it too is 110 degrees. There was absolutely no relief anywhere. All the ice melted hours before. All we had to drink was hot water, 110 degree water. I have never been so hot in my life,I swear my tongue swelled up. Joe and I finally moved outside to the concrete picnic table. We still didn’t sleep, but at least there was wind. I’m beginning to wonder just how much of a challenge the Burning Man is going to be. There isn’t even scrub brush out there from what I have seen in pictures.