Chasing excessive heat warnings
West Quest '23 - Days 15-18
Friday, 14 July 2023 (sent Sunday, 16 July)
Over the last two years, we have met numerous full-time RVers who chase “sunny and 70” — i.e. the southern states in the winter and the northern ones in the summer. It’s probably a good strategy.
Since Sunday, Frieda, Maddie, Skipper and I feel like we’ve been chasing excessive heat warnings. If there is one, we headed toward it.
It started in Tucson at the Davis-Monthan Fam Camp where we stored Ollie for the week we were celebrating my Dad’s birthday week. Not needing full hookups while there, we chose the $15 a day dry camping option rather than $27 a day full hookups. We have solar and lithium so we figured running the fans would suffice. Well, our onboard MarCELL (highly recommended BTW) let us know that each day, the temperature INSIDE the ollie was over 112 deg! So by the time we hit the road around noon on Sunday to start heading East, Ollie was cooking and she wasn’t going to cool down much with outside temps over 110 as we drove toward New Mexico.
Here’s some important advice for driving across the dusty and desolate landscape:
As the sun set on Sunday night at our campsite in Deming, New Mexico, we sweltered as the inside temps were in the 90s and then the 80s well into the night given it was over 100 outside even after sunset. Ollie’s AC unit simply could not even begin to keep up. We were pretty miserable.
Walking the dogs a little after 8 pm, we did see this wonderful rainbow and some rain, but alas, it did not bless us by passing over.
As we woke up on Monday morning, we were getting excessive heat alerts for both Deming, New Mexico and our destination for the day in Monahans, Texas. Oh joy.
Here you can see on the HUD that at 10:45 in the morning as we got back on the highway in El Paso after a coffee break, it was already 100 deg. BTW, that’s Juarez, Mexico just a couple of miles in the distance.
Leaving El Paso on Interstate 10, all vehicles have to go through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.
It felt surreal to approach a border checkpoint, American flag flying, and a sign saying “Please have your immigration documents ready” when were were on a U.S. Interstate the whole time and we never crossed the Mexican border at any point.
As drove across western Texas on Interstate 10 toward Monahans, we were reminded constantly that we were driving over the Permian Basin and oil is everywhere.
As we settled in for the evening on Monday night, it was very dry with temps well into the teens.
Texas is an enormous state and as we headed out Tuesday morning toward our destination of Millsap, it was oil, oil and more oil.
Home for Tuesday night, 11 July was a Harvest Hosts location called the Double T Ranch in Millsap, Texas where the owner offered full hookups.
Not much to report other than it was hot, hot, hot and we were pretty miserable for most of the evening. Once the sun went down and we got Ollie somewhat cool, we did sleep fairly well.
Our destination Wednesday was an Army Corps of Engineers campground on De Gray lake in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. And as crazy as it might sound, as we entered Arkansas, we were relieved the temps were only in the 90s.
For my final West Quest ‘23 post I’m going to provide an after-action on camping in 100+ temps and how our Oliver Legacy Elite II did in those temps.
I don’t know...I think I would have found the nearest hotel with AC and not left without a plane ticket to Alaska! You are tougher than I would have been!!