Pictures of the early morning roads.
If you want to do anything outside, you have to do it early in the morning. One of the advantages of jet lag is that you can’t sleep very late. I went running today at 5:30. It was hot, but not too bad, like a warm afternoon most other places I have lived. A lot of people were out running, walking and biking. In fact, I have never seen so many people exercising outside a park or health club designed for joggers or bikers. I suppose they are all concentrated at this time. They know that they have only a short window of opportunity. You can count on a sunny, rain free day every day during this time of the year, but by about 7:00 it gets too hot to do anything strenuous. You just have to adjust. In northern climates, you can’t do much in the winter because it is too cold. You just assume that you will stay in the house a lot from December through March because the weather is cold and miserable. The same is true in the desert; only it applies to summer heat. Nobody goes out during the middle of the day unless they have to. In that respect it has an advantage over the cold places. During January in Wisconsin or Poland there is no time of the day when it is warm enough to go out comfortably.
It is also true that the dry heat of the desert is easier to live with than the humid heat we often get in Virginia. I am not saying its not hot – 105 degrees in the shade is hot no matter what the humidity – but if you don’t move around it is not too uncomfortable and if you swim it is actually very cool as the evaporation is rapid. Below are some pictures of the early morning Phoenix streets. They are very wide and ready for a lot more cars than use them most of the time, although there are traffic jams in the downtown during rush hour. People drive a lot farther here. The city is spread out and most people will happily drive for 45 minutes or an hour to get to a restaurant of movie theater.
