Beating the heat...

kellem wrote:
It's very strange that in the east, you'll never exceed 70's when you ascend to 4000 ft elevation.
Hot temps have recently escaped us and relentless rains have approached.

Yep, was at Balsam Mtn Campground (5300 ft) in Great Smoky Mtns NP a couple of weeks ago and it was too cold to enjoy. Never got over 62F and in the high 40's at night. Second night I ended up with two blankets. I have only one battery and didn't have enough to run a furnace blower.

Charles

Thanks for the story and letting us know you had a good time.

Sorry to hear about your SIL's mother.

OP here... we just returned at noon today and had a great trip. While warmer than I had hoped, we had high 80's all three days, with the nice breeze it was very pleasant. The stage II fire restrictions were being stringently enforced as one FOOL found out the hard way. I guess he just "Had" to have a campfire and ended up booted from the CG in perpetuity and a $5,000 fine for his stupidity.

Propane fire pits {Fireplace in a Can, Little red Campfire etc.} are permitted but common sense {not all that common actually} dictates keeping them down low. We rode the Spyder a couple of hundred miles mostly on the Devil's Highway, one of our all time favorite roads and the early morning rides were nice and cool, around 69 to start, climbing up into the low 80's after a few hours.

After weeks of no rain we enjoyed a spectacular monsoon thunderstorm last night. It came and went in just an hour or two but not before dumping a lot of rain with a spectacular lightning/thunder show.

I had the the coach thoroughly serviced a few weeks ago and this was a great test of all of the systems. It was 330 miles round trip and that included a lot of climbing. We left home at 5,000' and the CG is at 9,180'. You pass over 9,000'+ about half a dozen times coming and going and with the temps in the upper 80's we were running the AC. Finished the trip at 8.5 mpg and we were running heavy towing the 2,500# cargo trailer which made me smile.

Sadly we are headed back to San Diego the end of June for a funeral/celebration of life as my SIL's mother recently/unexpectedly passed. We will spend about 8 days in southern California following the service visiting friends and celebrating the 4th of July at our old Yacht Club - always at the biggest party of the year. It's nice to know the coach is up to the task.

Here is a shot of our rig at site #73 at the Rainbow CG:



A lot of the kids in the CG got a big kick out of the Can Am Spyder as most had never seen such a machine. Must have been the Royale Blue/Metal Flake paint job as it sure wasn't this old guy riding it. :B

:C

ASNF just issued a Stage II Fire Alert for the park/forest. They may be trying to avoid what's happening over at Tonto.

Mayor30 wrote:
Have you tried Canyon Point Campground? We were there in 2018 in April and we had snow while Payson had rain. Higher elevation was cooler.

It has been one of our favorites for years. At 7,700’ it is always cool in the summer but reservations can be hard to get. The good news is that they keep a lot of sites as first come first get and they are only 30 minutes from home.

:C

Have you tried Canyon Point Campground? We were there in 2018 in April and we had snow while Payson had rain. Higher elevation was cooler.

It's very strange that in the east, you'll never exceed 70's when you ascend to 4000 ft elevation.
Hot temps have recently escaped us and relentless rains have approached.

I hear you, having been born and raised in PHX (go Suns) we always went to the White Mountains to escape the heat, living at 6K' northwest of ABQ we will be in the mid 90s next week. Will say that it is a bit early for monsoon season, still a couple of weeks away at best, temp-wise June is most often our hottest month.

It's been in the high 90's here in SW MN. This is hot for us and it looks like there could be more of it next week. Also, we have had no rain in awhile. The crops are starting to suffer. The lakes are low from a lack of show last winter and are quickly turning green. Someone was joking that this was the first time they ever told people not to come to MN because it's to hot.