While we’ve been gone, we’ve seen a couple of days in the 90s, a few days in the 60s or 80s, but most of the days’ temperatures peaked in the lower to mid 70s.
In the mean time, our home state of Arkansas was baking. Over 20 days so far this summer have been over 100°F.
Today, we drove from southern Illinois. Much of the morning was rainy and cloudy and the temperature stayed about 73°F. Once we got into Missouri, it started clearing and warming up. At Conway, when we got on the interstate it was over 100°. By the time we got to the point where we leave the interstate and head up into the Ozarks, it was 105°, though earlier we had seen 106°. It was 101° when we got home.
We have a nicely shaded yard and a big front porch. When we left, we turned of the air conditioner, water, and hot water heater. All the shades and shutters were closed. We have a minimum/maximum thermometer with both inside and outside temperature instruments. The hottest it got on the porch was 101.2°, while down in the valley temperatures were running much higher. The house was 88° inside when we got home and the hottest it got was 89° on August 14th. We must have gotten some rain as the yard plants do not look nearly as bad as we had feared.
Part of the reason we like to travel to the mountains is to escape the summer heat. We certainly did that this year.
We did anticipate cooler weather than we ran into this year. A lot of times when we go out west, we end up spending a fair amount of time in long-sleeved shirts (or sweatshirts) and jeans. However, we do know that it can be warm and take short sleeve shirts and shorts – which I ended up wearing more than anything else.
Our trip map is complete. The pins indicate places we stayed (camped). We had planned on being home no later than tomorrow. However, camping in the heat, especially when you’re not used to it, is not fun. So we decided to make it home in two days from Wisconsin instead of three.
