And 109 in Tucson. But it’s a dry heat! Hey the humidity is 2%. There is a something special about living in a place where the temperatures soar to 110 degrees and can stay in triple digits for weeks. Life shifts – you hike and bike at 5:30am, carry a water bottle everywhere, don’t touch your steering wheel when you get in the car, water plants daily, wear a hat, lather on sunscreen, close the blinds when you leave the house, turn the ceiling fans on high, take a siesta, eat ice cream and gelato, and shed clothes when you get home. Cactus get lean and shrivel. Even the dog wants indoors by 9am. The volume of traffic has significantly disappeared – all those snowbirds and college students have headed north.

You sweat, simmer, glisten, wilt, melt, and your skin feels sucked dry of any excess moisture. It’s a cleansing feeling, there’s a pureness that invades your being, you move at a different pace, eat less and transition to a slow life style.