Oct 30 2010

Open road ahead

We’ve got just about nine days left in Florida before we head west. Our next stop is five days camped at Disney World, and then up to Green Cove Springs for a night or two to conclude business there, and then we head west.

Between Green Cove Springs FL and Tucson AZ are about 2,000 miles of interstate highway. It’s a route we’ve driven many times, and we’ve always had a good time stopping at the Florida panhandle beaches, New Orleans, Austin & the Texas hill country, Big Bend, and the southern New Mexico state parks. It would be easy to re-trace our usual route but I view each trip as an opportunity to explore something new, so I’m looking for nominations from you — our blog readers — of things we should see/do/explore/hike/snorkel/photograph/eat/cook/play along the general path of Interstate 10 through Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico.

That’s 2,000 miles of great American country, so don’t act as if there’s “nothing to do”! Tell me what you recommend. Should we take in some white sand in Florida’s panhandle, or investigate the status of the oil spill at the national seashores of Mississippi? Camp in the newest state park in Louisiana, or drop in on New Orleans for some beignets and chicory coffee at midnight at Cafe Du Monde? Park on the beach in Corpus Christi, or chow down on the Texas Barbecue Trail? Walk through the Caverns of Sonora, or Carlsbad Caverns?

The good news is that we have such great choices. Also, I have no business obligations or appointments along the way (although they have a tendency to pop up). We can set our own schedule for the home stretch, as long as we get back by our “hard stop” date of November 26.

You might be thinking, “Three weeks? That’s a lot of time!” but it’s amazing how quickly three weeks vanishes. Given that we rarely drive more than 300 miles in a day, and usually less, we have to budget 8-11 days just for driving. That leaves 9-12 full days for exploring, plus fractions of days left over after towing.

A really good destination stop like Big Bend takes a minimum of 3 days not counting travel days. Likewise for an interesting city where we have friends, like Austin or New Orleans. Just two major stops takes up at least six of our 9-12 full days. That doesn’t leave much room for other stops. So we’ve got to be careful about our choices, and especially any detours from the general I-10 route.

In the past we’ve tried to rush through a bunch of stops, carving down places that would normally take several days to just a quick overnight, and it’s very unsatisfying. It’s better to have a good stop at a few places than a lot of rushed pauses. If you make a suggestion and we don’t take it, don’t take it personally. We really can only do a few things on the way back and there’s a lot of country to cover, but that’s all the more reason to consider our options and make the most of what time we have left on this great journey.

Oct 05 2010

Shenandoah National Park, VA

On the ideal trip, it feels great to be heading toward your destination in the wilderness, and it feels great to be heading back out to civilization. That means you’ve gotten your fill of change and perspective, and hopefully are more appreciative of everything you’ve got in life. That’s how I feel about our past few days in Shenandoah National Park.

We could hardly have had worse weather coming into the park. The big rain that everyone was talking about (see comments on the previous blog entry) hit the Washington DC area as we left, and we towed the 95 miles up to the mountains in a moderate rain, with fog along the top of the Shenandoahs obscuring all of the views along Skyline Drive. All we could see were waterfalls splashing down the exposed rock along the edge of the roadway. This is the sort of weather that tells you if you have a leak in your rig; fortunately we did not.

We were expected by friends who had already been at Shenandoah for over two weeks. Bert & Janie Gildart were there, working on the fourth edition of their popular guide to Shenandoah National Park (published by Globe Pequot Press), and they’d been joined by Adam and Susan, who were hiking the trails with the Gildarts. To update the book, Bert needed to hike every trail again, take new photos, and capture GPS coordinates of all the trailheads.

Everyone was out when we arrived, so we hit the Visitor Center first, to get oriented and get Emma’s Junior Ranger program. The Jr. Ranger badge for Shenandoah is a tough one, requiring the purchase of a $3 workbook and completion of 12 activities plus attendance at two ranger programs. It ended up taking all four days for Emma to complete.

The Visitor Center at Big Meadows tells a very compelling story of the formation of the park, focused on the political and cultural struggles that surrounded it. During the Great Depression, when the park was approved, the land was occupied by tenant farmers and homesteaders, most of whom were relocated, and there was quite a bit of travail associated with that. There’s also a story surrounding the contribution of the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose signature stonework and architecture are visible everywhere.

The pouring rain and fog reminded me of our visit to the Hoh Rain Forest in October 2007. On that trip Eleanor made an apple crisp, and coincidentally she made an apple pie while we were in Shenandoah. There’s something about baking in the Airstream on a cool rainy afternoon that makes it feel very cozy.

Unlike our trip to the Hoh, we were also comforted by our catalytic heater, which really paid off on this trip. There are no hookups in the Big Meadows campground, so we were operating solely off solar power and batteries. I like the smooth, silent, radiant heat the catalytic heater produces without needing electricity, and its high efficiency. We ran it each night as the temperatures dipped into the low 40s. Our friends were admiring it as well, since they were going without heat on some nights in order to budget their power. The generator hours in this campground weren’t really enough for them to recharge their batteries fully if they used their furnace extensively.

Fortunately the weather turned beautifully sunny on Friday and stayed that way all weekend. Shenandoah runs about 10 degrees cooler than the valley below, which meant perfect fall hiking weather in the 60s each day. The rain took a lot of leaves down, but there were still plenty to show some early fall foliage color, and the air was sparkling clear for stunning vistas both east and west.

I did two short hikes on Friday morning with Bert, Adam, and Susan, and in the afternoon we picked up Janie, Eleanor and Emma for a 3.3 mile hike to Lewis Spring Falls. Emma and I celebrated the day by trying the chocolate shakes at Wayside, the cafe and store at Big Meadows.

Our evening activity was the 7:30 pm ranger talk at the amphitheater, shivering on a cold aluminum bench outside despite hats, gloves, and warm jackets. (Wow, the things we will do to get a ranger signature on the Junior Ranger program…)

The weekend campers arrived in droves on Friday, which predictably meant we spent the weekend in a haze of campfire smoke. Bert and Janie had the bad luck to get some noisy neighbors with “Diplomatic” license plates. (They apparently confused diplomatic immunity with a license to be obnoxious.)

We chose to take the day in Luray, down in the valley below, to get some extra propane and diesel, and to visit the famous Luray Caverns. The caverns are bigger than I remembered, much more sophisticated (now with an audio tour) and much more expensive at $23 per adult. But the ticket includes admission to two other small museums on site, one filled with antique cars, the other filled with Shenandoah valley historical objects. The result is a solid two to three hour visit.

This time we had the chance to actually see things as we covered the 15 miles or so of Skyline Drive from Thornton Gap to Big Meadows, so we stopped at every overlook along the way. Several were closed for renovations, with signs that say “Your Recovery Dollars At Work”, but there were enough spots open to get a really nice look at both the eastern and western valleys. Back at camp, things were smokier than ever, and we had to peer through a haze to see the ranger’s presentation that night, but we knew it was the last night we’d have to endure camping in the midst of a forest fire.

Sunday’s hike amounted to 5.5 miles roundtrip to South River Falls, in 46-52 degree temperatures. Eleanor and Janie stopped at the falls overlook while the rest of us continued down to the base of the falls. It turned out to be a good call for those of us who went down, because we spotted a bear cub along the way. Momma Bear was nowhere in sight, but I’d guess she was in the direction we saw the cub running.

Supposedly bears have not been a big problem in Big Meadows campground, but the rangers are careful about it nonetheless. I left a 12-pack of diet soda on the picnic table for Adam, and while we were gone the rangers confiscated it. They left a note saying it could be retrieved at the campground entrance station, and Adam picked up the soda with good humor while Eleanor made a dessert treat for everyone (pound cake with a reduction of fresh raspberries and Grand Marnier, dark chocolate sauce, and Amaretto cream.) Dinner came later. As they say, “life is uncertain — eat dessert first.”

Since we were budgeting our water in the Airstream very carefully in order to get four nights of use out of our 39-gallon supply, I volunteered to take a shower far up the hill at the campground’s shower/laundry area. It was far enough up the hill that I drove the car over, with my towel and soap. The deal was $1 (four quarters) for five minutes of water in an unheated shower cubicle. Since the time limit wasn’t actually posted at the showers I used, I guessed how much water I had left—and I guessed wrong. Unlike a car wash, there was no “beep beep beep” to warn of the impending end of water. It just suddenly slammed off, and I was left with a significant portion of soap on my body.

There is no negotiating with these machines. The only thing they care about is four more quarters, which I did not have. I needed 30 seconds of water but you can’t get sympathy from a coin-op machine, so I wiped off most of the remaining soap, dressed, and drove the car back down to the Airstream where the rinsing was completed.

Solar-wise, we did well. The first day was a washout, and the last day (Monday) was a washout, but the other three days were very sunny. Every day we were fully recharged by afternoon. We left the park on Monday morning in an extremely heavy fog with 75% of our battery power remaining. We had planned to leave on Monday, but even if we hadn’t it was definitely time to go: the weather was abominable, with wind, light rain, dense fog, and temperatures hovering around 40. Adam and Susan left as well, but Bert and Janie will be there another week or two to complete work on their book.

Emma was concerned about towing in the grim weather. The fog was so dense that deer could not see us coming, and would jump out into the road with no warning. The speed limit on Skyline Drive is 35 MPH, but we covered about 15 miles of that twisting and hilly road at a very sedate 25 MPH, carefully studying the trees as they appeared from the gloom for signs of deer. Two passed right in front of us but we were going slowly enough to stop. I posted some video showing just how spooky this tow was, on YouTube.

We are now near Winston-Salem NC in a pleasant county park. It is Fall even here, but much warmer and fairer. For the next four days we will be engaged mostly in work and school since this is a spot with conveniences such as cell phone service. Our immediate plans from here are vague, but generally we are headed to Florida where various appointments await. For the next two weeks, we are mostly free to roam between here and there.

Sep 05 2010

Horseneck Beach State Reservation, MA

The Airstream is rolling again!

Our tour this fall will bring us down the cluttered East Coast, with stops in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida (at least). The full itinerary isn’t yet worked out because we like to leave in flexibility, so I expect a few other stops will pop up as we slide south. The plan calls for us to get to Florida by early October. We’ll hang around there for a few weeks, then start the western leg back to Arizona in November.

Of course, with the Airstream sitting in a driveway under trees for the past three months, we’ve had some prep work to do this week. Mostly it was a matter of having to evict the spiders, who have been busy covering the Airstream in webs, and cleaning the roof. Normally I don’t sweat the dirt on the roof, but in this case we knew we’d be camping without power hookups and so I had to get up on the roof and at least clean the solar panels. Once I saw the condition of things up there, it was obvious everything had to be scrubbed with a brush. I have never seen a roof so incredibly filthy. We had leaf mulch, bird droppings, rotting twigs, some sort of mildew or mold, spider webs, and heaps of leaves. (The discolored water you see coming off the roof contains no soap — that’s just the gunk I’ve scrubbed loose.)

The junk on the roof was blocking the proper drain channels for rainwater, and it made examination of the caulk impossible, in addition to disabling the solar panels. So it’s a good idea to get up there once in a while to clean and inspect, but you do need to be exceptionally careful on a wet Airstream roof. I didn’t use soap because I didn’t want to slip off.

The other pre-departure tasks including washing the entire trailer, vacuuming all the window screens and cleaning the windows, cleaning off the last of the adhesive from our former “Tour of America” sticker, greasing the hitch, adding air to the tires, dusting the window sills (it’s amazing how much dust they gather), cleaning the roof vent screens, and cleaning the interior. After a few weeks in Vermont we always notice that the interior gets a sort of funky wet-dog smell. Laundering all of the soft goods (blankets, sheets, towels, rug) and wiping down all the interior surfaces with orange cleaner eliminated that.

Eleanor spent a few days sorting through Emma’s things, because every time we move, she has grown taller and half her clothes no longer fit. Likewise, she reads about 15 books a month, so those had to be sorted too. 23 pounds of her books were shipped to home base in Arizona, and another 10 pounds or so were given away. It’s not the weight so much as the volume of these books — there’s just no space to store a kid’s library in our 240 square foot home!

Hurricane Earl came up the east coast on Thursday and gave us an unexpected extra day in Vermont. The state of Massachusetts closed all the seaside campgrounds, which included Horseneck Beach State Reservation, our planned destination for Labor Day weekend. The closing was precautionary, and fortunately Earl left no significant damage at Horseneck. But that left us in Vermont on Friday, with good sailing conditions, so Emma got to go ride the trapeze on Uncle Steve’s Hobie Cat again. She’s become (mostly) fearless about this sort of sailing, since they’ve been teaching her the ropes all summer long.

Carolyn took her own Hobie out, and Eleanor and I followed in the chase boat (Boston Whaler) to snap pictures. If Earl hadn’t come up the coast we would have missed this. If the Massachusetts Dept of Conservation hadn’t closed the campgrounds, we would have been camping in the rain and wind instead. So in a lot of ways, it was a good last night in Vermont on Lake Champlain.

Saturday we arrived at Horseneck Beach. It’s one of those exciting east coast campgrounds that runs right alongside the ocean front, with constant wind and (thanks to Earl) high surf. The moment we stopped the car and opened the door, we were buffeted by a fresh breeze with that unmistakable smell of salt and seaweed that always make me think of lobster. It felt great.

The wind is very strong. We won’t be putting out the awning. In fact, our campsite runs parallel to the rocky beach and the Airstream is being hit by the breeze broadside. I put the stabilizers down rather firmly to keep the trailer from rocking too much. We can’t leave anything outside, lest it blow away.

Within minutes of being parked, the side of the Airstream was coated with a fine spray of salt. Even opening a window on the windward side results in salt-laden air blowing in. The waves are about 150 feet away, and we can hear them pounding on the shore all day and all night. I think the last time we heard that wonderful thunderous sound, we were sleeping in a parking lot on St George Island (FL), nearly four years ago.

The beach here is composed entirely of round rocks about 4-8″ in diameter. They roll and clatter into the undertow with every wave with the sound of a thousand crabs all clacking their claws at once. Between our site and the beach is a barrier of saltgrass and wild beach roses, with a narrow path through it. Emma has discovered ripe rose hips growing plentifully.

Our arrival was not completely ideal. The park ranger was off doing patrol when we arrived, so we followed the instructions and parked ourselves in our reserved spot. This was a little tricky due to the narrow pavement areas in the sites, and we needed two leveling blocks on the sea side of the trailer to make it level. With the wind making communication difficult, it took a little more effort than usual, but in about 15 minutes we were set up, unhitched, and ready to settle in. Then I went back to the ranger station to check in, and discovered that we were in the wrong site.

After driving 300 miles, I was a bit tired and it was already five o’clock. But there was nothing to do about except break camp, hitch up again, and push the Airstream backward about fifty feet to the correct site, then repeat the entire performance of setting up again. It was about six by the time we had it all done.

Well, these things happen. I can’t pretend I was happy about it, but I knew that once the job was done we could settle in and do basically nothing for the next two days. We have a few ideas of what we might do today and tomorrow, but it is Labor Day and everyone knows that Americans celebrate Labor by doing nothing laborious. So I don’t plan to do any work this weekend, other than a little blogging. But if I did, could I ask for a better office window view?

Solar power report. There are no hookups in this park, so we are using only solar power. We started yesterday with full batteries, of course, and at 8:00 a.m. this morning our Tri-Metric battery monitor reports -28.3 amp-hours. That’s about average for us for one night, with no furnace use and minimal laptop use. Today we expect full sun all day.

Jul 26 2010

Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, AZ

As we approached the final day of our 700-mile tour of Arizona’s high country, Eleanor and I found ourselves a little reluctant to contemplate going home. The weather was fine and I had only a little work pressing me to return by Monday morning. Our budget was holding out very nicely too: about $50 in fuel, one night of motel, and a couple of inexpensive meals were the total of our expenses. Another night would cost us virtually nothing, whether measured in money, lost work opportunities, or any other factor we could think of.

The real limitation was that we were running out of high country. Our third night was spent near the Mogollon Rim at the west end. From there, Rt 87 dips down to the towns of Strawberry, Pine, and Payson, all at elevations of about 4,500-5,000 feet. Although that was still moderately high altitude, it would be hotter than we wanted for tent camping. Our other option was to head north into the vast Coconino National Forest and stay at 7,000 to 8,000 feet, but such a detour would add two days to our itinerary, and that was too much time for me to skip work.

We puttered around for a while, but eventually decided that we’d make a very full day of going back to Tucson, with a big stop at Tonto Natural Bridge State Park (north of Payson), and anything else along the way that caught our eye. (Click here for map from Kehl Springs Camp to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park.)

Tonto Natural Bridge had been on our “to do” list ever since we first came through this area with the Airstream Safari in May 2007. The entrance road to Tonto has a very clear warning of a 14% grade, and to emphasize the point, a “trailer drop off area.” In our first visit we weren’t inclined to drop off the trailer, so we just parked there for lunch and then moved on without having visited the park. I’ve wondered if we could have done that grade with the trailer, so last week’s trip with the Honda was our chance to investigate it without any risk.

I’m glad we heeded the sign. The 14% grade is real, and it’s probably a little over a mile long. There are a couple of tight turns, and — the real killer — no RV/trailer parking in the lot. Don’t bring your rig down. Due to limited space in the parking area, you might have trouble turning it around to get back up!

As you may know, Arizona is one of many states with a budget crisis. Our legislators robbed the “dedicated” funds for state parks over the past two years (a total of $71 million!) leaving the park system underfunded and in danger of collapse. One-third of the state parks were closed in April 2010. Since then, a combination of increased fees at state parks and contributions by nearby towns and private organizations have allowed some of the parks to re-open. It’s pretty sad when the park system — a profit-making enterprise for the state as well as a critical cultural and recreational resource — is so mistreated by the legislature that towns have to run fundraisers to keep their state parks from being shut down completely.

When we arrived, the impact was apparent. Entry fee is now $5 per person (up from $3), and the park is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. We contemplated getting an annual state parks pass ($75, or $200 if you want to visit the Colorado River parks on weekends). We’ve always supported our national park system by buying an annual National Parks Pass, for $80 every year. But we realized the Arizona State Parks Pass was an iffy value if, at any time, the state might choose to shut down a third of the parks again. There’s no guarantee that any of the parks will be open later this year, since 23 of them are now dependent on local community support and that funding carried them only through the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010.

So we skipped the Arizona State Parks Pass. That was a sad moment for me, because I know that many other people will skip the pass as well, for the same reason, and that will only deepen the financial crisis. But if I bought the pass, would I be assured my money would go to the state park system and not be “swept” or “diverted” (i.e., stolen) by the state legislature to fund something else? Maybe I’d be better off buying a lot of cupcakes at the next Town of Payson community bake sale.

Enough of that. We were here to visit the natural bridge, not talk about politics. So we chatted with the volunteers managing the cash register and headed down to the parking area to begin exploring. The park is centered on a deep travertine canyon with a small stream running through it. The stream carves through a massive natural bridge which you can scramble beneath from a canyon trail. Uniquely, there is also a small waterfall from atop the bridge as well, for added poetry in a place that is already abundant with beauty.

I simply can’t do justice to this place in a couple of blog photos, so I’ve put an album up on Flickr with a better selection. It is an impossible place to capture in any single photo, since every view offers a completely different take on this gorgeous place. But here’s a bit of advice: don’t be so blown away by the grand views that you fail to notice the little details in the canyon. We saw fabulous cave-like formations in the travertine walls, swallows nesting up high, fresh-water crawfish scuttling around the pools down below, brilliant yellow century plants in bloom, and much more.

To really see all that Tonto Natural Bridge has to offer, you must make the effort to climb down into the canyon and hike along the stream through the tunnel beneath the bridge. I recommend going down the Pine Creek or Anna Mae trails (steep) to the river canyon, scrambling through the tunnel, and coming back up on the shallower Waterfall Trail. And hurry: at last report, Tonto is scheduled to close on September 27, 2010.

It was well into the 90’s even at Tonto, elevation 4500 feet, so we knew to expect plenty of heat by the time we got to the Phoenix area. But the road had one last adventure for us, the incredible Rt 87 “Beeline Highway” from the point south of Payson where Rt 188 splits off, southwest to Mesa. “Beeline” is a misnomer, as the road twists and rolls through high desert for fifty miles to Ft McDowell and Mesa. But I suppose that’s in keeping with the fact that it passes through a section of the Tonto National Forest that has no trees. Even though the Beeline was fairly swarming with pickup campers and boat trailers (from Roosevelt Lake) heading home on Sunday afternoon, I had a fun time zipping down it in the Honda Fit. By dinnertime, we were back in Tucson … and thinking about where we might go next.

Jul 23 2010

Mogollon Rim

One of the things I like best about Arizona is that it is so diverse. People who haven’t really explored it often assume the state is one giant barren desert of scorching sand. If you only flew into Phoenix for a short trip, you might easily be forgiven for that mistake. The state is so huge that you have to allow a lot of time in order to see even a tiny fraction of what it has to offer.

That was a big motivation for making the recent tent camping trip that I’ve been describing over the past few blog posts. We are now officially Arizona residents, complete with drivers licenses, vehicle registrations, and (soon) voter registrations. This is our home base between Airstream trips. I want to know this place that I’m calling home. So I mapped out a 700-mile round-robin (click map for larger view) to see the high-altitude parts of northern Arizona that we never venture near during the winter.

Our trip started up the Devil’s Highway (Rt 191) through Arizona’s White Mountains, and then brought us across the Mogollon Rim, staying almost exclusively above 7,000 feet elevation. This is the gorgeous green part of Arizona, where pines and black bears and tourists all flourish in the summertime.

The Rim, the focus of today’s adventure, bears some explanation, as it is not nearly as well known as the Grand Canyon to the northwest. But it is nearly as grand. It is a 200-mile long escarpment, sharply defining the edge of the high plateau. As you can imagine, standing at almost any point along the edge of the Rim yields fantastic views to the south, perhaps even more stunning in some ways than the Grand Canyon because you can often see five or more forested mountain ranges in succession over distances of up to a hundred miles.

To enjoy the view, you need only drive up Rt 260 from Payson and stop at the visitor center just at the top edge of the rim. But to really see the Mogollon’s many views, you’ll need to drive on some gravelly National Forest roads, namely FR300, and grit your teeth against the dust and constant jarring. This probably explains why the Mogollon Rim does not have the stature of certain other western sights. You have to really want to see it, and there are no signs along the paved highway indicating, “Turn this way for awesome views!”

We drove almost all of FR300, about 38 miles in total. With regular stops for photo and exploring, the trip took over two hours. Most of the travelers along this way are in pickup trucks, so our lowly Honda stuck out, but there’s no need for a high clearance or 4WD vehicle in good weather. The key is to go slowly, but why would you rush? Every turn yields an astonishing view from the Rim.

Bring a good map. The Forest Roads form a maze along the Rim, and Mapquest is not your best tool when planning this trip. It’s easy to stick to FR300 all the way (signage is good) but without a map you’ll be hard-pressed to figure out how to get back to pavement, should you wish to cut the trip short. Otherwise, it’s a long rugged drive from one end to the other.

Camping is available at many spots along the rim. With a few exceptions, you can camp anywhere within 300 feet of a road. Toward the eastern end of the road are several established campgrounds, all of which were mobbed on this Saturday of peak season. Ten to fifteen miles further west, the crowds disappeared and so did the campgrounds, but we spotted dozens of incredible single tent sites right on the edge of the rim. At a few, you could hang your feet out of the tent door and your toes would be dangling in mid-air. Most of the sites were occupied, but we passed a few others we could have snagged. The memory of the previous night’s huge thunderstorms were fresh in our minds, and we didn’t want to choose a campsite atop an exposed 7000-foot elevation escarpment if those storms returned again. This time, we were going for something in the trees.

Kehl Springs camp fit the bill. This old National Forest camp sits in a little valley, well sheltered from storms and apparently less-loved by campers than boondock spots along the maze of Forest Roads. We were only the second occupants of this 8-site campground. I can’t imagine why — it was shady and quiet, with the benefit of pit toilets nearby (but no water), and like our previous camp it was free.

This was perhaps the best night of the trip. We arrived at camp hours before sunset, with absolutely nothing to do. The sun was shining through the trees and the air was scented with pine, fairly dry and beautifully cool. As often happens in western camping, there were no biting insects, either, just lots of friendly butterflies.

So lacking anything structured to do with our time — the essence of vacation — we proceeded to make camp, pitching our tent just inches from the biggest tall pines at the campsite. We read our paperback books at the picnic table and made an Indian dinner over the camp stove with the gas lantern hissing in the background. It may not seem very traditional to be eating Trader Joe’s Indian food at camp, but we liked it just fine.

This was to be our last night above the Rim. Knowing that it would be well over 100 degrees by the time we reached the desert floor, it was hard to contemplate leaving this forested oasis. But at least we were rewarded on our final night with light cool breezes, a peaceful night among the trees, and no thunderstorms.