Death Valley Heat
We took a drive into DVNP yesterday... was plenty HOT at the visitor center!
Forum Discussion
This heat thing is kind of like childbirth: You'll never know if you're not a female. And, it's very relative. I lived in the desert southwest as a kid and never thought about it being hot. It just was. You learned to stand in the shade, any shade once the day progressed, if you could find any, and move slower as it got hotter.
30 years ago Jeanie and I drove our then Jeep XJ, aka: The Not-So-Grand Cherokee (with a.c. and a digital temp readout) from L.A. to Laughlin NV. on June 21st of the year. It was a hot day in L.A. and by the time we got to Barstow it was 115 degrees. As we drove east we crested a little pass that leads down to River Road, the turnoff to Laughlin. At the top of the 3K foot pass the readout said 119 and I remarked to Jeanie wondering if the readout would stop at 120. No, it jumped to 121 and subsequently as we descended to the Colorado River it jumped to 124 degrees. As we entered the Casino parking lot the big sign across the Colorado at BullHead City said 126. This set a new all-time high in Laughlin. Not to worry, the record was broken about 15 years later when it zoomed up to 128 degrees fahrenheit. The thing is, I cannot tell you how hot that it was because you have nothing with which to judge it by. It was extremely dry and you could feel the juice just sucked right out of your epidermis just standing on the blacktop. Your eyelids felt like potatoes chips. Your lips were beef jerky. You still don't know how hot it was. I usually brought my bass trombone to keep my chops up by playing late at night in the multilevel parking structure. I'd get out my music stand and put my horn together for an hour or so's practice.The mouthpiece was so hot I could not put it to my lips without dousing it with bottled water. It was so hot that no water came out when I depressed the water key on the slide. That was a first. I was spotted on the in-house camera and a guard came around on a little electric cart, stopping to see what I was doing. I said,
"Better to practice here than next to your room, No?" He concurred with a laugh and buzzed off down the aisle way. So, how hot was it?
jefe
30 years ago Jeanie and I drove our then Jeep XJ, aka: The Not-So-Grand Cherokee (with a.c. and a digital temp readout) from L.A. to Laughlin NV. on June 21st of the year. It was a hot day in L.A. and by the time we got to Barstow it was 115 degrees. As we drove east we crested a little pass that leads down to River Road, the turnoff to Laughlin. At the top of the 3K foot pass the readout said 119 and I remarked to Jeanie wondering if the readout would stop at 120. No, it jumped to 121 and subsequently as we descended to the Colorado River it jumped to 124 degrees. As we entered the Casino parking lot the big sign across the Colorado at BullHead City said 126. This set a new all-time high in Laughlin. Not to worry, the record was broken about 15 years later when it zoomed up to 128 degrees fahrenheit. The thing is, I cannot tell you how hot that it was because you have nothing with which to judge it by. It was extremely dry and you could feel the juice just sucked right out of your epidermis just standing on the blacktop. Your eyelids felt like potatoes chips. Your lips were beef jerky. You still don't know how hot it was. I usually brought my bass trombone to keep my chops up by playing late at night in the multilevel parking structure. I'd get out my music stand and put my horn together for an hour or so's practice.The mouthpiece was so hot I could not put it to my lips without dousing it with bottled water. It was so hot that no water came out when I depressed the water key on the slide. That was a first. I was spotted on the in-house camera and a guard came around on a little electric cart, stopping to see what I was doing. I said,
"Better to practice here than next to your room, No?" He concurred with a laugh and buzzed off down the aisle way. So, how hot was it?
jefe
