Western heat is tough on an Oregonian
(Written Sunday)
We traveled about 435 miles today, stopping by a New Mexico field to catch giant grasshoppers. Otherwise the boys passed the time in the car playing on their DS, which is a hand-held game system. The game they played was Age of Empires, in which they battled each other utilizing the armies produced by their different civilizations. Very realistic game. Their armies depended on the crops their villages grew, the size of their natual resources including gold mines, and their skill at raising and commanding an army.
It was 96 degrees as we pulled into Albuquerque, New Mexico just before 7 p.m. I told my kids to enjoy the cool weather because in a few days we’ll be at Annie’s house in 29 Palms, California, where it will be 10 or 15 degrees warmer. How do people live in this heat?
It never gets above 70 degrees in Gold Beach, Oregon, where BHM is located, and never above about 80 degrees a mile and half inland where I live. I’ll take my six or seven months of Oregon rain a year over this heat. A lot of people can’t stand so much rain, and they move out of Oregon a year after moving there. It took my body about a year and half to acclimate, as I seemed to get frequent colds, but then I got used to things and have lived happily ever since. Despite the rain, coastal Oregon is not muggy like it has been in so many places during this 4500-mile (so far) trip.
When BHM’s senior editor, John Silveira, and I were 20 years old we hitchhiked through Albuquerque as part of a 9000-mile plus hitchhiking trip across America. It was just a little city then, but now it is huge. We had some problems back then with thugs who threatened to kick the crap out of us. Luckily we got out of town, the heat, and the potential trouble intact. We subsequently ended up hitchhiking through Watts in L.A. the evening of the Watts riots. We survived that too and ended up at John’s sister’s house in San Diego.
I’ve lived a charmed life ever since.
