#71 / 2008 Tour 4 Winter: The Temperature Drops

 SAN PEDRO RIVER

#71


So we followed the San Pedro River exploring one old mining town after another. The days have been beautiful but the nights were cold. You don't feel much like you're living a dream when you are cold at night. 

We are sleeping under two down comforters and have a battery of appliances for heat. Sometimes I just make a little fireplace with a bunch of fat candles at night, then I have a Coleman stadium heater, a little heater that runs off of a canister. We aren't sleeping uptop yet, there's another bed up there, we use the fold-out bed below. 

Then I take a blanket and tuck it in along the ceiling and our bed is like a little couchette on a European train. I get all that heated up and we go to bed really warm and cozy. It's when we have to get up to pee about four or five in the morning that it gets tough.

After that I usually can't go back to sleep so I just wait. I keep the stove by the bed so I can just turn it on to start the coffee and not get out of the warm covers. We drink the coffee and watch our breath freeze in the morning air as we wait for the hot Arizona sun. Once it does come over the mountain tops it will warm the van within thirty minutes.

We keep our crank radio in the bed and really enjoy listening to it at night. I heard so many weather reports about Tucson being in the forties at night that I finally insisted we go there. Joe didn't really want to hit any big cities but now that we are here we love it. And we are warm all night!