Lessons from the Road, Part Six

It's a Dry Heat - making the best of it

They say that about Arizona. "It's a dry heat." As if somehow sticking your head in the oven is comfortable vs. sticking your head in the sauna. Dry heat, by definition, is still hot.

When we arrived in Phoenix, it was about 300 degrees. (Or, to be more accurate, 114 ... and that's actually not an exaggeration.) It was hot. Uncomfortably hot. Can't-sit-outside-for-too-long hot.

In the chill that is Illinois in November, I miss this.

And yet I remember thinking to myself, "there's going to come a time in the not-too-distant future when I'm going to need this memory."

It's mid-November in the Midwest, and I'm pretty much there.

So yeah ... it's a dry heat. And back home, it's a wet cold. And the truth of it is, you get what you get and if you're smart, you make the best of it, no matter what.

Alex and I spent a lot of time outside while I was in the PHX. We went for ice cream (where I had a scoop of the best coffee flavor I have ever had) and sat under an awning. We had the best burgers for lunch and sat in the car, windows down, under a tree. We did a golf thing, wisely as the sun was setting. And yeah, we moved the young prince into his new on-campus apartment, right in the heat of the day.

The point is to not hide out indoors, because that's just not going to serve you in the long term. We would have missed out on some pretty stellar adventures if we hadn't been willing to be out in the world.

And now here I am, back home, on the verge of bitching about the weather. I suspect it's going to be a long winter, because it's always a long winter. But I have all the gear I need to make the best of it. Because life is short, and if I can eat ice cream in 117-degree heat, I can sure as hell drink cocoa when it's below zero.