It is Easter Sunday in the Chihuahuan desert. While cool, even cold temperatures blanket our mid-atlantic home, and pickelball-perfect mid-80’s surround the Florida place, we bake in the desert. We have been pushing hard exploring the region and in the effort have run out of things to wear, things to eat, and available morning hours to accomplish it. When coffee hour began with a wake-up at 9 rather than 7, we knew that our exploring window had probably passed. You cannot kick your self for sleeping in. The body takes what it needs.
We lazily transitioned to Camp Day. Jugs of empty drinking water sat on the counter. Sand and dirt off the hiking boots powdered the floor. The laundry bin overflowed. Today would be a good day to refit, regroup, and refresh for a hot week ahead.
Roxie has air conditioning, but within limits. Her 15,000 BTU unit can bring her interior temperature about 20 degrees lower than the surrounding environment. When the surrounding environment is 110, the math is simple. The inside will not be cool. In historic homes, kitchens were placed in the rear for a reason. Kitchens throw off a lot of heat. The propane stove and oven in Roxie is no different. The morning hours are the best time for meal prep, a time when the heat of the stove has a chance of being removed or tolerated. A double batch of vegetarian orzo soup went on the stove while the outside temperatures were still a comfy double digits.
It seems odd to be making soup when it’s 109 outside. Our last grocery shop was in Corpus, 5 days ago. The selection of produce was past its prime so we settled on longer lasting items like sweet potatoes, carrots, celery, onion plus a couple peppers and zucchini. Raw onion can be added to tuna with pickles, raw celery can be filled with almond butter and raw carrots can be dipped in a sour cream blue cheese dip. Cooked they make soup, curry, fajitas. Roxie’s crisper kept things cool, but crisp left the building so orzo soup it is.
We’ve been eating fresh this week, saving the frozen and canned food selection for when we are dry camping in Cottonwood. That’s when we thaw the frozen fish to grill with microwaved broccoli, or the Eric’s homemade Italian meatballs with baked beans and riced cauliflower. We won’t see a grocery store until April 25th but we’ve made a list of all the meals we can make and are enjoying them according to how much heat they require. It’s an adjustment to meal planning for sure. At home we think about what we feel like having then go to the store each day for key ingredients.
The camp store provides our resources including laundry facilities. Laundry days are times to dig for quarters in the center console, and relax and wait for the wash cycle to finish. Half of the machines are out of order which may have been a problem if there had been any demand for laundry beyond our own. As it were, there was none. Forced relaxation with a book or spotty wifi comes free with the machines.
We are drinking 3 or 4 gallons of water per day. Most parks have drinking water refill stations somewhere near the visitor center. The camp store will sell you a gallon for $2.50. The water station is free. The water has a slightly salty flavor to it. Nevertheless, we refill all empties. We figure the body needs salt.
By the time chores are done, morning has transitioned to afternoon. Roxie is 90+ degrees inside with the AC on high. The Rio Grande is less than a half a mile away and the water allows large trees to grow along the border of the paved parking lot campground. Moving out of the hot box, we set up for an afternoon outside. Table, puzzle, lounge chairs, reading, writing and of course WORDLE are passive pastimes in the heat of the day which will last until the sun sets at 8:18 p.m.
Avocados that are on their final day and Texas beer and chips from the store make for a pleasant happy hour. The campground is silent. All occupants are either hunkered down in their rigs or perhaps exploring up in the cooler mountains. At 6:30 p.m., the Tesla returns to be placed into Camp Mode. It shares the electrical outlet with an Insta-Pot for and insta-dinner we imagine. Our presence on the edge of the green space is eventually ignored as a pair of Road Runners come out to scour the camp site for dropped chips. A hot breeze blows through. There is no getting cool but if you stop moving, you can almost not sweat.
