On Sunday, the mercury rose to the first triple digit temperatures of the season in Phoenix. This weekend鈥檚 102-degree measurement is the earliest in eighty years.

Triple-digit temperatures are not uncommon in Arizona, but averages in Phoenix usually stay below 100 degrees until early May. The last time Arizona saw 102-degree temps this early in the year was in 1943. Arizona鈥檚 early-season highs could indicate that the state is in for a warm summer, which could make the hiking season a particularly treacherous one.

Over the weekend, the state鈥檚 temperatures and high winds led to a fire warning for most of southern Arizona. The heat didn鈥檛 keep hikers away from popular trailheads, though. Instead, they piled into the Piestewa Peak and Camelback Mountain parking lots, filling them by 7:30 A.M. Although the day passed without incident, hiking these popular trails in triple-digit temperatures often results in rescues.

In 2021, the city of Phoenix to close these popular trails during excessive heat warnings issued by the National Weather Service. The program ran from July to September and results were almost immediate. Over the course of the 2021 season, rescues in the region decreased to 81, a 19 percent decline from 2020. In 2022, they decreased by an additional nine percent.

Closing down these popular trailheads seemed to help to keep more hikers safe: 鈥淟ast year, in the first full summer of our trail closure program, during excessive heat days, we only had 18 days where the trails were closed. Since the pilot program, we have seen a decline in the number of rescues,鈥� Adam Waltz, the public information officer for the city鈥檚 parks and recreation department, . It isn鈥檛 yet clear whether the heat closure program will begin early this year.

Waltz has some words of advice for those who love to hike in every condition: 鈥淧lease know your limits. Maybe turn around, do an easier hike. Hydration starts the day before. Really make sure you鈥檙e drinking lots of water.鈥�

Hiking in hot conditions doesn鈥檛 only risk the health of hikers; it also puts first responders in danger. Taking steps like checking the forecast, bringing extra water, and wearing sun protection can help to limit some risks associated with heat exposure.

These triple-digit temperatures come just weeks after the due to snow damage. While some hikers hoped to delay their Rim to Rim trips until later in the spring, local outfitters and park officials suggested that the Rim to Rim season might be a wash due to Arizona鈥檚 quickly rising temperatures.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Phoenix typically doesn鈥檛 record a 100掳F day until June; in fact, the average first 100-degree day is in early May, according to the National Weather Service.

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Dear Sundog: I love the desert. From my own muggy home, I try to make it to the Southwest every year: Tucson, Santa Fe, Joshua Tree, St. George. I鈥檓 considering moving there. But is it wrong to move to a place that doesn鈥檛 seem to have enough water to support the people already living there? 鈥�Dry Curious

Dear Dry:听First we must consider that all desert towns are not equal. Many have managed to restrict their water use and growth to some semblance of balance with nature, while others鈥� and 鈥攃ontinue to expand, even as their current water supply dries up.

While of course water delivery to millions of people is complicated, in this region, the ecological culprit is obvious: grass.

Sundog loves to run his toes through verdant lawn as much as the next guy.听But the modern American lawn鈥攖he half-acre of Kentucky bluegrass sprinkled daily, mowed weekly, petro-fertilized seasonally鈥攈as no place in the desert, even as it鈥檚 become emblematic of a sort of golfy affluence in Sedona and St. George. The EPA says that in the Southwest, 60 percent of household water use irrigates the outdoors. Put another way, for every four gallons used for cooking, washing, and bathing, another six go for preparing the croquet course. Yet another way: a year鈥檚 water supply with a lawn would鈥攚ithout a lawn鈥攍ast two and a half years.

Lawns are a European import, brought to the arid American desert first by settlers from places like the Scottish Highlands and southern Germany, where grass just naturally occurs, and second by the wave of 20th-century snowbirds from places like Virginia and Michigan where, also, grass just grows. Why must the white man turn Scottsdale into Scotland, even as it quickens the decline of his desert colony?

In , Jared Diamond relates a story about the first Europeans to occupy North America: the Vikings, who settled what is now Greenland, four centuries before Columbus arrived on the continent. They planted their European crops and brought cows, which didn鈥檛 fare well in the new terrain. In the harsh winters, food was scarce. The settlers observed the Inuit hunting seals and then heating their homes by burning blubber, eating the meat鈥攕urviving. But the Norse considered this slimy meat beneath their dignity and considered the Inuit to be wretches. They refused to consume it. As a result, they starved and fled back across the sea, ending their four-century stay in the Americas.

Mightn鈥檛 we say the same, Dry Curious, about the maladaptive desert grass farmers? They see the water bills. They witness the ongoing drought. They know that the artificial lifelines from Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which have existed for just a geological blink of an eye, are filling with silt and approaching dead pool. And still they sprinkle.

Even as the vast majority of these settlers were born right here in the USA, Sundog speculates that their attachment to turf is some sort of emotional inheritance from the Motherland of moors and meadows. Their colonies here are predicated on the notion that their forefathers discovered an unpeopled dry wilderness, which they irrigated into their own slice of Eden.

But it鈥檚 not true. Indigenous people built complex, irrigated, agricultural civilizations along the Salt River and the Rio Grande and the Colorado River that sustained them thousands of years longer than our current one. If you visit a reservation or a town settled by the Spanish before the Anglos arrived鈥攖hink Santa Fe or Old Town Albuquerque or Barrio Viejo in Tucson鈥攜ou won鈥檛 find many lawns. You鈥檒l see cactus and pi帽ons and junipers and native shrubs and rock work and sometimes just plain dirt: a kind of xeriscaping that predates the word xeriscaping.

Long before the advent of gringo water projects, these places were habitable due to natural factors: Santa Fe had a cool high elevation and a snow-fed river, Tucson had the lush summer monsoons and the perennial Santa Cruz River, Albuquerque had fertile soil along the Rio Grande. To be sure, Native people don鈥檛 dislike greenery; most of the green parts of the desert were taken from them, along with the water rights. And I should also clarify that modern Americans of all skin tones love themselves a moist lawn: it鈥檚 not just a white thing. The point is that the people who have inhabited the desert for centuries are still inhabiting it, and showing others how it can be done.

But for today鈥檚 turf warriors to acknowledge all of that would be to question the short-sighted premise of the American petro-state, an experiment that has lasted less than a century. And so instead of ripping up that sod and planting it with native shrubs and grasses, they clench that garden hose more tightly with their sunburned fists.

To continue the Collapse analogy: Anglos can see Natives eating the fish (conserving water) and have the capacity to eat fish themselves (to stop watering lawns), but they would rather go extinct than give up their lush leas that they once saw Mel Gibson charge across in Braveheart.听

The next factor to consider in moving to the desert is your capacity for being hot. Along with cheap water, the modern Southwest was built with cheap electricity to run air conditioners. And it鈥檚 only getting hotter. A reports that six counties in Arizona鈥攊ncluding Maricopa, home to 4.5 million people in and around Phoenix鈥攁re in danger of becoming uninhabitable in the next 30 years as the planet warms. Does that mean that people will flee? Of course not. They will just use more oil and electricity to cool their homes and cars. Let鈥檚 face it: there wasn鈥檛 some recent past where Phoenix was a sustainable oasis. Its听century-long boom has been dependent on electricity produced by burning coal on Navajo land and a major nuclear power plant, as well as cheap gasoline for driving five miles to get a cup of coffee.

Sundog dreams of a future where all desert dwellers inhabit homes with foot-thick walls made of natural materials like straw bales and adobe, where they run swamp coolers from solar panels on the roof, and capture rainwater in barrels and irrigate native plants with drip lines. While that future听has arrived here and there, the vast majority of desert homes are poorly insulated mash-ups of drywall and fiberglass and pine sticks that dump precious water onto a square of sod and burn hot coal to blow cold air at the eternal sun. Warming the planet in order to chill our homes is madness.

In general, yes, it鈥檚 ethical to move to the desert, provided that you鈥檙e not intent on growing a green lawn and that you can听hack the 100-degree summers without cooling your home to 72. Remember that you鈥檒l be moving to Indian Country; be an ally to tribes defending their land and water and sovereignty. Avoid Phoenix and Las Vegas and St. George, which have placed themselves on a one-way path to drought catastrophe. In the desert, small is beautiful, and there are still plenty of shaded creeks flowing through the canyons, providing life for small bands of humans, where you can build the future as you want it. Sundog won鈥檛 tell you where they are, but if you look hard enough you might yet find one.

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Dear Sundog:听I hate Lake Powell. Is it OK to throw trash in it?听

鈥擫颈迟迟别谤颈苍驳

Dear Littering:听Your question is absurd. This is a magazine for nature lovers, and nature lovers don鈥檛 litter, especially not in nature! Sundog鈥檚 attorney has advised him to state that chucking trash in Lake Powell, part of the national park听system, is a crime punishable by up to six months in jail and up to $5,000 in fines.

Yet, let鈥檚 take a closer look at this ethical query. Lake Powell is the 254-square-mile reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam that fills the sandstone canyon upriver from the Grand Canyon. For many, the redrock, green water, and blue skies are the essence of beauty: a summer haven for houseboats and waterskis. For others, it鈥檚 an ugly graveyard, the evidence of one of our nation鈥檚 most hideous acts of industrial hubris, damning the Southwest鈥檚 largest free-flowing artery, the Colorado River.

Sundog first arrived on the lake nearly three decades ago after his first run through Cataract Canyon, which at flood stage boasts America鈥檚 biggest whitewater, ending unceremoniously in the slackwater of Lake Powell. I was a rookie boatman. The white-bearded guide had just successfully piloted our J-rig snout pontoon boat through the series of 30-foot waves in a single day. As we puttered through the hot canyon, the 100-degree breeze dried听our soaked clothes.听We broke into the cooler for beer and snacks.听The guide chomped at an apple and then, from behind his silt-spotted sunglasses, muttered, 鈥淟ake Foul,鈥� and chucked the core overboard.

We rookies looked at each other in shock. We鈥檇 just completed our training on the principles of 听and would soon be听guiding across these waters our own rafts of greenhorns, who would invariably ask what to do with their own banana peels. We were also aware that the reason we were motoring across a reservoir instead of running a dozen or so additional rapids was because those rapids had been flooded. With a sudden burst of taboo glee, we flung our orange peels and soggy bread and paper sacks into our wake, watching听them swirl in the foam as we putted past.

Answering your question, Littering, pits two of the West鈥檚 prophets against one another. On one side is , who quoth: 鈥淕ive a hoot, don鈥檛 pollute.鈥� On the other is Ed Abbey,听who gleefully tossed empty Schlitz cans out the window of his Cadillac: 鈥淥f course I litter the public highway,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淓very chance I get. After all, it鈥檚 not the beer cans that are ugly; it鈥檚 the highway that is ugly.鈥�

We must consider the difference between the environmental and the social impacts of our behavior. Most of what we learn from Woodsy Owl and Leave No Trace is social. For example, on a river trip, it makes no difference to the ecology of a desert river canyon where you pee. But peeing on the beach stinks听and turns an otherwise听pristine camp into a skeezy freeway underpass. So we piss in the river, not to protect the 鈥渆nvironment鈥� but to improve the aesthetics for the next human visitors. If our only concern was nature鈥檚 well-being, I鈥檓 afraid to tell you that our best behavior would be to stay far away from nature听and not buy the gasoline, pickup trucks, polyester garb, and plastic rafts that must be manufactured for us to enjoy it.

Abbey鈥檚 line of thinking is correct: the devastation to the Colorado River and its plants and animals and fish wreaked by Lake Powell will forever dwarf any damage we could do with our outboard motors, pee and poop, sunscreen residue, and piles of trash. The only real impact is social鈥攖hat is, houseboaters and wakeboarders down the lake will be irritated to find litter bobbing against the otherwise pristine rock walls. How irritated? So much that the Park Service has established a confidential tip line called 鈥淧owell Watch鈥澨齠or lawful jet skiers to rat out the litterbugs. Employing the familiar War on Terror tagline 鈥淚f you see something, say something,鈥� the gubment would have us believe that dropping a wee turd on the sand is tantamount to dropping a suitcase bomb on the subway.

Let me suggest a societal lesson. The pristine beauty of a reservoir allows people to confuse it for God鈥檚 creation; indeed, Ol鈥� Sundog himself squandered afternoons of his youth racing speedboats in circles on Reservoir Powell for no purpose other than draining the gas tank and letting the hot wind feather his hair. But we can鈥檛 confuse the simulation of nature with the real thing. Lake Powell is industrial blight, a government boondoggle whose purpose was to provide the water and power that has allowed nearly 5 million souls to settle in air-conditioned comfort in greater Phoenix, a desert that might otherwise be classified as unsuitable for human habitation.

Not only is your litter ecologically negligible, but it also听serves a valuable function in teaching us the difference between nature and industry. As far as Sundog is concerned, the only thing that might improve Lake Foul more than litter would be graffiti spray-painted on its walls. (This also is illegal, by the way.) Ultimately, when a tourist arrives at the shores of the lake, instead of thinking, 鈥淭his is gorgeous! Let鈥檚 jump in!鈥� she should declare, 鈥淲hat a mess! Let鈥檚 get rid of this eyesore!鈥�听

Let鈥檚 get down to specifics. Is it OK听to throw glass in the reservoir? On a river expedition in Central Asia, Sundog听was instructed by the guides to fill his beer bottle with river water and fling them into the current, where they would sink to the bottom of the channel and be ground to sand by the rocks. Great idea! However, since what remains of Lake Powell鈥檚 channel is caked with silt, bottles will not disintegrate听and, as water levels ebb, will likely end up underfoot, ending someone鈥檚 vacation with a trip to the ER, which is in Sundog鈥檚 opinion too high a price to pay for this political lesson. I advise against it.

As for your basic organic materials鈥攁pple cores, banana peels, orange rinds, brown sacks of gorp soaked upriver in the rapids鈥攜our own heart will provide the answer. Hold the litter in your hands as you gaze over the glistening water. Scan for rangers. Maybe toss a peanut or a cherry pit as a test. Does it bring you joy? If yes, then chuck the rest. Chuck it all!

Except, of course, for plastic bottles and aluminum beer cans.

You should recycle those.

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Across the country, camping and RV rentals are soaring as Americans heed the words of COVID-19 health experts: it鈥檚 safer to be outdoors than indoors. Rather than use your campground as a base camp, why not treat it as destination in and of itself?听These sites offer plenty of adventure right from your tent and breathtaking views to enjoy during your downtime. Be sure to听check individual websites for COVID-19 guidelines or restrictions before you head out.听

West

Cape Lookout State Park Campground, Oregon听

Located 80 miles from Portland, this听park has ten miles of hiking trails and more than 170 beachfront 听(from $21) along a two-mile peninsula. Hike the 2.6-mile trail to the tip of the cape for views of migrating whales in fall.

Southwest

Mogollon Campground, Arizona

The Mogollon Rim is a 200-mile-long听limestone and granite cliff located two hours northeast of Phoenix. After hiking along the 4.2-mile 听or kayaking on secluded , pitch your tent or park your RV at the 听(from $18). A short walk will take you to the rim鈥檚 edge for sunset views over .

Midwest

Old Man鈥檚 Cave Campground, Ohio

Two hours east of Cincinnati, is teeming with impressive forest听and waterfalls. This 听(from $23) offers the easiest access to picturesque Old Man鈥檚 Cave via the two-mile Rim Trail. Mountain bikers will enjoy the park鈥檚 shady trails.

Northeast

Hither Hills State Park Campground, New York

While you might not expect such an expanse of wildnerness right next to the Hamptons, Hither Hills has 190听听(from $7) tucked away in bluffs that border the Atlantic Ocean, a 40-acre freshwater lake, and lush woodlands. Wake up to waves crashing along the shoreline, then explore the dunes at Napeague Harbor, take a hike through Russian olive and pine trees, and surf or kayak in the ocean.

Southeast

DeSoto State Park Campground, Alabama听

Located 100 miles northeast of Birmingham, this park is situated听on 2,392-foot Lookout Mountain, which is coated with vibrant foliage every fall. Its 3,502 acres include听94 听(from $15),听half a dozen waterfalls, and nearby听Little River Canyon, which has some of the toughest rock climbing in the state.

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According to KOA鈥檚 , more people are pitching tents closer to home. And that鈥檚 even more true now as we navigate state-by-state reopenings听from coronavirus shutdowns. Luckily, there are more urban places to camp than you鈥檇 think, like these sites鈥攁ll within 100 miles of big cities.

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park

A smattering of 34 islands and peninsulas just off the coast, this park has no shortage of activities, including swimming. We recommend , one of four that offer camping, for its hiking and views of the harbor. Seven primitive sites (from $8) are tucked into the woods and walkable from the beach. While most visitors take the ferry from Boston, those looking for a challenge can kayak an hour to reach the island. Note: the park is currently closed. Check for updates.

Phoenix, Arizona

Lost Dutchman State Park

Lost Dutchman has the same dramatic landscape as the region鈥檚 Joshua Tree and Saguaro National Parks鈥攖hink classic Sonoran Desert full of majestic cactus鈥攂ut without the crowds. Forty miles east of downtown Phoenix, the 320-acre park serves as a well-appointed trailhead for Tonto National Forest. At the RV-friendly campground, to get a site with views of the Superstition Mountains (from $25).

Atlanta, Georgia

Panola Mountain听State Park

Atlanta is famous for suburban sprawl, but tucked amid all the chaos is Panola Mountain State Park, a 1,635-acre swath of wilderness 15 minutes east of downtown. You鈥檒l have to hike half a mile to reach (from $22), which sit next to a pond filled with bream. There are 36 miles of hiking trails and a tree-climbing program that will have you reaching the tops of 100-foot red oaks. Time it right and you can sleep in the canopy during one of the park鈥檚 overnight climbs.

Chicago, Illinois

The Vaudeville Urban Farm

Sometimes you don鈥檛 even need to leave the city to pitch a tent. A 9,000-square-foot farm tucked into Chicago鈥檚 East Garfield Park neighborhood, this has five campsites (from $48). Gather eggs, feed the goats, and use the prime location to explore the city. Run or pedal the 606, an abandoned rail line that鈥檚 been converted into a 2.7-mile-long park; kayak along the Chicago River; or take the train to Lake Michigan and run or bike the Lakefront Trail.听

San Francisco, California

Angel Island State Park

The best view of San Francisco鈥檚 skyline听is from a tent in the middle of the bay. The 740-acre has 12 campsites (from $30). Catch a ferry听to reach the island, or kayak to one of听two sites accessible from shore. Rent a bike from the Angel Island Company听and ride nine miles of car-free roads, or hike the Sunset Trail to the top of 788-foot Mount Livermore for 360-degree views of downtown San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.

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On our first anniversary in Artemis, our Airstream, we ended up exactly where we started鈥攄ry camped outside of . It was never a plan to be there. But we鈥檇 just flown in from an assignment in Siberia, with minus-20-degree temps for several weeks, and though we were due back in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a few days, my wife, Jen, and I decided to post up and defrost. Camped below the , with singletrack out the door and temperatures that were warm enough to have coffee outside at dawn, it was a good time to take stock.

Since purchasing the Airstream last year, Jen and I have toured the Four Corner states. We鈥檝e spent a little over eight months living out of Artemis, with the remainder of the year split between international work travel and a couple of weeklong stints in our hometown of Santa Fe last fall. In January, we went full time. Road life has been rewarding in many ways, but the move to a trailer has had its challenges. One year in, thinking about what it took to get here, I realized there were a few things I wished I鈥檇 known from the start.听

#1. Just Do It

First and foremost, if you鈥檙e considering a major lifestyle switch, be it to a trailer, a van, a smaller house鈥攐r even moving somewhere new or hitting the road to travel for a while鈥攄on鈥檛 hesitate. Just do it. Less than a month passed from the time we tried out an Airstream to the time we moved into our own, and there were moments when we both worried that we had rushed into a crazy and untenable thing. We both had a bunch of assignments and travel come up throughout last spring and summer, which wasn鈥檛 ideal with the trailer, but we worked it out. Had we waited for the perfect situation, we might still be at home thinking about it.

#2. Sell Your House听

Once you鈥檝e committed, rent or sell your house听immediately. We did not do this, and I wish that we had. For the first few months, the idea that there was a home in Santa Fe waiting for us if we changed our minds was a comfort, but it was also a financial drain and an unnecessary waste of resources. We only used the house a few times when we had to stop back through, and then only because it was there. We rented it full time in January, and the peace of mind that comes with the mortgage covered can鈥檛 be overstated. Don鈥檛 get me wrong: it鈥檚 nice to come back to your own space. But the longer we travel, the more Artemis becomes our space, and these days I鈥檇 rather camp on forest service land outside of Santa Fe when we must be in town.

#3. Redefine听Luxury听

Our goal has been to boondock, staying off grid and away from campgrounds as much as possible, but the big question is how long you can get away with it. Electricity, water, and your tanks are the limiting factors, but if you are used to conserving a bit and have spent any time camping, they are far less a restriction than you think. We have 29-gallon fresh- and gray-water tanks, and 19 gallons black, and we鈥檝e stretched those stores to last three weeks without dumping or replenishing. That means no luxuriating in long showers and occasionally taking advantage of the woods for bathroom duties, but with some solar input (or a few hours of generator every couple of days if there鈥檚 no sun), we keep our batteries charged, our electronics running, and ourselves clean.听

#4. Have No Fear

One of the biggest questions I get is whether it鈥檚 dangerous to post up on public lands. After all, you don鈥檛 have the relative security of other campers. From our experience, there鈥檚 nothing to fear. We have had exactly one questionable experience, a week after moving in, when I woke in the desert to a stranger听disconcertingly close to the trailer. The man seemed a bit out of it and unbalanced but was indifferent to us. Besides a bit of nerves, nothing came of it. Since then, it鈥檚 been nothing but either cordial experiences with passersby or blessed silence and solitude. The woods are big and you generally don鈥檛 see other people. Besides, living in a trailer, you鈥檙e a pretty meager target鈥攁nd a difficult one to nail down given the unpredictable nature of road life鈥攃ompared with all those neighborhoods stuffed with big homes full of things.听

#5. Splurge on Your Cell Plan

Sign up for unlimited data, from day one. We spent six months choking down our usage and finagling free WiFi. It worked okay but meant that I was frequently putting off communications for a day or two or driving to find a coffee shop where I could plug in. It doesn鈥檛 seem like it, but that can add up to a lot of time moving around and going into town, which defeats the point of being in the woods. For $20 more a month, we signed up for unlimited data with Verizon at the beginning of the year, and it鈥檚 probably the best money we鈥檝e spent in 2017. With full access, work gets done even quicker than before, and the time we were using for errands is now free for riding, reading, and other recreation.

#6. Maintain Your Batteries听

Yes, it鈥檚 a bit idiotic on our part, but we assumed that the batteries in the RV were maintenance free in the same way as a car battery is. Not so. The stock batteries are basic flooded-cell, lead-acid marine variety. Without geeking out on the details, these batteries need to be replenished with water. (Also, as with many types of batteries, they shouldn鈥檛 be run below half charge.) It鈥檚 a simple process that involves popping open the caps to check the levels every 30 days or so and adding water if they are low. If you don鈥檛 know that, as we didn鈥檛, they鈥檒l run dry and won鈥檛 hold a full charge thereafter. Less than a year after moving in, we got replacement batteries. Credit where it鈥檚 due: the folks at Interstate batteries were extremely helpful and gave us half off on the new ones as they said there might have been some problem with ours to begin with. Also: there are maintenance-free batteries out there, which I鈥檒l get into in a coming post.听

#7. Prepare for All Seasons听

We knew that if we spent any winter time in Santa Fe or points north, we鈥檇 need to empty the tanks and blow out the lines so they wouldn鈥檛 freeze. But we kept putting it off because the weather was good in December and we thought we might head south again soon. Then temperatures unexpectedly plummeted below zero, and we woke one morning to find an icicle emerging from the kitchen sink. Fortunately, no damage was done. But the lesson learned was to winterize early. It鈥檚 a simple process that you can do yourself. Even if you end up running the trailer wet again soon, all you鈥檒l have lost is an hour or so of time. If the pipes freeze or tanks burst, you could be looking at thousands in repairs.

#8. A Cozy Duvet and Propane Heater Are Musts听

Despite what we initially thought, winter isn鈥檛 the enemy. Warm weather is nicer: without the outdoor space for eating, reading, and recreating, you can start to feel a bit cooped up in such tight quarters. But we spent a couple of weeks this winter in snowy conditions and it was fine. We鈥檇 worried about the pipes freezing, running out of propane, and being too cold. None of that happened. A good duvet made for warm sleeping, even with the thermostat set low (55 degrees) at night. But we were surprised how comfortable we were running the propane heater.听Even after two weeks with it mostly on, we didn鈥檛 deplete one seven-gallon tank.听

#9. Plan for Storage

If you are going to have to store your trailer or RV, plan well in advance. Mostly, we let our schedules and interests guide our wanderings, with no real agenda. But one of the trickiest challenges has been finding a place to leave Artemis when we both get assignments elsewhere. For short stays, we sometimes find a secluded spot in the woods and lock her up. But long trips, like the almost month away in Siberia, necessitate proper security and logistics. Three months before that trip, Jen spent over two hours and three dozen phone calls searching for a spot in Phoenix. We lucked out when someone happened to cancel a storage reservation while Jen was on the phone enquiring. But it made us realize that spontaneity is tough when you need to find a spot for 4,600 pounds of rolling home.

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The Hotel Valley Ho, in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been renovated to perfection, with studio rooms both mod and modern thanks to -designed bathtubs, midcentury-style recliners and other stylish touches. The suites go a step further with groovy mood lighting and living rooms that feel straight out of your parents鈥� 1970s basement (minus that awful shag carpet).

After a day of (try the for a real challenge), grab a deep bodywork message at the hotel spa or just hit the rowdy pool scene and ply your aching body with margaritas.

The tagline of Valley Ho鈥檚 onsite restaurant, ZuZu, is 鈥渃lassic food for current people,鈥� which is pretty accurate. Order the pan-roasted chicken breast with a warm farro salad and a Manhattan and plot your next couple days: More swingin鈥� pool action or another sweet ride? It鈥檚 a toss-up if you ask us.

The Details: 鈥淪ignature鈥� rooms start at $127, while the suites will run up to $625. The hotel is located in downtown Scottsdale, steps from galleries, restaurants, and shops.

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I’M IN A HORRIBLE MOOD and I see no chances for improvement. Depression is climbing me like a strangler fig. Recently I read a piece on the op-ed page of The New York Times by Michael Paterniti, a fine writer and a past editor at this magazine, who says that the American road trip is dead. (This because of gas prices and other obvious reasons.) If the road trip is dead, so am I. Often the only thing that cheers me, here in densely populated suburban New Jersey, where I live, is the thought of driving straight to some unknown creek in Michigan or Montana and working my way so far up into the dog-hair pines that not even I can find me. Now that fantasy can no longer be played out in real life. Get used to it, Mr. Paterniti says.

Mount Auburn Cemetary, Boston

Mount Auburn Cemetary, Boston

If that’s the case, I have one fallback. Sometimes the best I can do for physical consolation is to go into New York City and visit the Hall of North American Mammals in the American Museum of Natural History. For years I’ve been retreating there when longing overwhelms me. The Hall of American Mammals is dimly lit and echoing melodiously with grade-school groups. The animals in the exhibits are true works of art, beyond mere taxidermy, but what I come for even more is the landscapes聴the American and Canadian and Mexican scenery in the exhibits’ backgrounds. There’s Mount McKinley behind the bighorn sheep, and the Kenai Peninsula around the Alaskan brown bears, and the immense horizontals of the Wyoming prairie in the American-bison-and-pronghorn-antelope exhibit.

A plaque on the wall lists the artists who painted the backgrounds. My favorite is one J.P. Wilson, about whom I know nothing but the name. J.P. Wilson seems to have specialized in subdued, brooding landscapes under darker skies. The wolf exhibit is his masterpiece. It is the darkest in the hall; it shows two wolves bounding along the margin of Gunflint Lake, in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, late on a winter night. A curtain of Northern Lights flickers behind them. The wolves have jumped a deer, whose fresh tracks you can see in the snow. They are looking in the direction the deer has run. A niche in the wall opposite the exhibit, maybe eight feet away, happens to be in the direct line of the wolves’ gaze. You can sit in that niche on the marble floor in the museum’s near dark and imagine yourself stranded and alone in the North Woods with only seconds to live before the wolves tear you apart. Here in the megalopolis, there are days when you’d be surprised how much better that can make you feel.

SEVEN MORE CITY SANCTUARIES

1. MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY, BOSTON
Climb to the top of the cemetery’s 62-foot-tall Washington Tower for close encounters with red-tailed hawks and an unobstructed view of Boston’s skyline.

2. THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
Twelve miles from downtown, the Huntington is a calm oasis with art collections and a 120-acre botanical garden.

3. LINCOLN PARK ZOO, CHICAGO
While this haven for endangered wildlife, on the shore of Lake Michigan, greets the public at 9 a.m., the grounds open at day颅break, making its 35 acres perfect for a wild morning run among rhinos and gorillas.

4. JAPANTOWN, SAN FRANCISCO
Only a mile from Union Square, these six square blocks are loaded with authentic sushi bars, karaoke lounges, and gardens. Don’t miss the Kabuki Springs bathhouse.

5. THE NOMAD WORLD PUB, MINNEAPOLIS
At this hip, new West Bank watering hole, there’s live music, ten beers on tap, and聴the real draw聴outdoor bocce courts.

6. DREAMY DRAW RECREATION AREA, PHOENIX
Mountain-bike 60 miles of trails in this saguaro-studded preserve smack in the middle of the city, or scramble up to the 2,600-foot summit of Piestewa Peak.

7. THE BOATHOUSE AT FLETCHER’S COVE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Three miles upstream from the Lincoln Memorial, this 150-year-old D.C. landmark rents rowboats for floating and bass fishing on the Potomac River.

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Adrift: Did Alaska's frigid waters take another life?

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Treachery at Sea: A honeymoon cruise proves lethal

Disturbing the Dead: What does the president know about Geronimo's skull and when did he know it?

Swallowed Up: A fateful trek into the Hawaiian jungle

Only the Mountain Knows: Who summited Cerro Torre first?

Strange Geometry: The Bermuda Triangle's horrors

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Face Scratcher: An unholy terror descends on India

Mystery Writer: A lost legend was it suicide or murder?

Swept Away: The doomed sea crossing of a French baron

Final Patrol: A dubious disappearance in the wild

No “X” Marks the Spot: Hidden Treasure Waiting to be Discovered

Cracks in Creation: The Bermuda Triangle isn't the only place you might witness the unexplained

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Concealed in the jagged Superstition Mountains of central Arizona, the Lost Dutchman gold mine has been attracting dreamers and fortune seekers for more than a century, none of whom have been dissuaded by the fact that this desert wilderness has claimed at least 100 lives.

The听archetype听of听American buried-treasure legends begins with German Jacob Waltz, known as “the Dutchman,” who died of pneumonia on October 25, 1891, in Phoenix, leaving beneath his deathbed a candle box containing 48 pounds of rich gold ore. Waltz, an old prospector with a flowing white beard, had been known to live modestly while in town then disappear into the mountains for months at a time. Upon his return, he'd occasionally pay for a round of drinks at the saloon with a gold nugget or two. During his final hours, he is said to have dispensed a few cryptic hints about the location of his mine.

“'The setting sun will shine through a window rock and illuminate the mine'… 'If you pass three red hills, you've gone too far'… 'The moon will cast a shadow from Weaver's Needle.' These are the sort of clues that have come down through history,” says Josh Feldman, 26, who's been looking for the mine for years along with his father, 62-year-old treasure hunter Ron Feldman. “They make a good story, but as far as I'm concerned they're all bullshit.” The Feldmans, who live near the Superstitions, suspect that these leads were fabricated by ranchers and others to throw people off the scent. The real treasure, they think, is buried near some old Spanish silver mines on the eastern slope of the Superstitions.

“There has to be something that preceded Jacob Waltz, the Mexican or Spanish workings of a mine or cache,” says Ron Feldman, who believes that what Waltz found was a treasure that had been abandoned by its Mexican owners when this part of Arizona was ceded to the U.S. in 1848. The Feldmans' discovery of a Spanish mine shaft in the eastern end of the range lends credence to that claim and has imbued the legend of the Dutchman with new legitimacy.

Though they found no bullion, the elder Feldman deems it a satisfying culmination to his decades-long search. “If my main goal was to find the gold and get rich, I wouldn't have begun this,” he says. “The fun's in the history and the searching.” Still, he's not selling his shovel any time soon.

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