Fallon-Austin-Delta-Moab and the Colorado river

   GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado - Admiral Fox and I didn't make it to Bears Ears National Monument after all.

And 'freaking hot' barely covers it

     And we now have a first-hand knowledge of what the expression 'blistering heat' means. Consider me blistered.
     But first...
     We spent an uneventful evening at the Austin, Nevada RV park Wednesday night, a clean, well-lighted place owned and operated by a local church.
     It was a quiet as a nearby graveyard, as was most of Austin. (Note to campers: When you arrive mid-afternoon at a town like Austin, get out and see what there is to see right away.)
     By 5 p.m., most of the sidewalks were rolled up tight except for a couple of restaurant-bars.
     But if you want to pick up an inexpensive house, Austin might be the place. There were a dozen vacant houses, some with Realtor signs out front. Others sported trees growing through broken windows. Admiral Fox was not impressed with any of my potential dream houses.

Lawn mower and weed eater not inlcuded in price

     We barreled out of Austin early in the morning, landing in Delta, Utah at an RV park where we stopped last year. It was a quiet interlude that included an all important domestic chore - laundry. Refreshed and clean Saturday, we barrelled on with a pit stop in Ely, Nevada for gasoline and supplies, and then pushed on to our goal Moab, Utah.
     That's where the blisters of blistering heat smacked us right across the forehead and everyplace else.
     It was 103 when we arrived, humidity in the low single digits, and wind.Wind! Gusts up to 30+ mph.

Three campers, three air conditioners that Moab's heat defeated

     It was so hot, the air conditioner in The Red Writer went on strike. I was distressed until this morning when both my RV park neighbors confided that the AC units on their 40+ foot motorhomes also quit.
     I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated. My usual swill-beer-to-keep liquids up strategy failed miserably.
     But the story has a happy ending.
     After considering that we had been driving fairly relentlessly six days, often buffeted by high winds on the highway (and in the campgrounds) and were being slowly baked in extreme heat, we hightailed from Moab to Glenwood Springs where we have locked in for at least three days of camping 10 feet from the Colorado River.
     Ten feet, no kidding. And the temperatures are in the high 80s in the daytime, 60s at night. Pretty close to perfect.
     Admiral Fox says she might not leave this campground until the first snow.
     I think she's kidding.
     But I don't like the way she is studying the schedule of exercise classes set for the rest of the summer in downtown Glenwood Springs.
     More tomorrow after she goes to town to check out the schedule for the hot springs, too. 
 

Even the grocery stores in Nevada give you a chance to hit the jackpot

For sale at a Moab winery - perfect for a Finger Lakes musician