As nice as it is for a full time RVer to travel with the weather, there comes a time when a little voice whispers, "Aren't you getting a little soft? What happens if you had to live in the real world again?" Indeed, a type of moral rot sets in. I was worried about surviving twelve months in the Little Pueblo in the southern New Mexican highlands. Winter turned out to be an enjoyable challenge, but I expected to adjust to a real winter.

It's the Dry Heat that has been the villain of my life out West. Would 6000 feet of elevation be high enough to survive summer? The first couple times that we hit 90 F this June I overheard locals complaining about how bad the heat was. I'd won.

But it's actually a bit disappointing when you finally slay a great villain. You feel a void. Without him your life has lost one of its central organizing principles.

When I pay my rent and electricity every month, the office people laugh at my electric bill of $5, especially if I make anguished faces about it. Most people weigh in at over $100 of electricity in mid-winter and mid-summer. Some go over $200 per month. I would love to brag up my solar panels but in truth a couple thousand dollars of solar panels, batteries, inverters and hardware only lowers the electricity bill by $4 per month. Those who think that solar energy is the salvation of mankind are playing with an eco-romance, and have never looked at the arithmetic.

What really gets the credit is the use of a (20-30 watt) evaporative cooler from Turbo-Kool, instead of one or two (compressor-driven) air conditioners. (A standard 13,500 BTU/hr RV air conditioner is 4000 watts.) Naturally air conditioners keep you cooler than an evaporative cooler but in addition to the dollars you pay the price of being cooped up behind closed doors and windows. I don't see how to keep the outdoor world interesting except to keep it challenging, and I can't experience that by cocooning inside an air conditioned box.

The other day I forgot to bring my towel to the campground shower and was feeling too hot and lazy to retrieve it. Is it really necessary to dry off after taking a shower in New Mexico? Actually it wasn't. I simply got a few minutes of evaporative cooling out of soggy clothes. And not that many minutes. Why hadn't I thought of that before? Why didn't I soak my sombrero before taking a walk to the grocery store in mid-day? Why not train my dogs to enjoy getting dunked with water in mid-day?

There's been a nice breeze everyday. It puts you into a languid mood for enjoying summer. A summer breeze makes you feel like you breathe through your skin. It is the great advantage of road cycling that you can manufacture a breeze over your skin. On many a day of road bicycling through the national forest I've looked at cars parked at hiking trailheads and cringed at the thought of slow walking through an airless forest.

There is a peacefulness to sleeping with the door open at night, despite more noise. The RV seems like a big tent. Even if there was a breeze at night, my RV's cursed louvered windows would block it. In the suffocating immobility of the bedtime air, a layer of goo begins to gelatinize on my skin. When I flick on a roof-mounted exhaust fan of 17 Watts I am amazed to feel an immediate, subtle relief. I am still hot, but Suffering loses its capital S when we start to win, even just a little bit.

Lying on the hot sheets you stretch out to maximize your skin surface. You feel the wall of fear and loathing breaking down. Finally you surrender and become the succubus of summer.