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Migration Tactics

The Arkansas River Valley, Colorado, a couple years ago. Most people yearn for a long, lingering autumn, full of crisp mornings and warm afternoons, of apple festivals and glorious colors. A season without snow, rain, humidity or bugs. Many autumns don't quite live up to this dream, because it gets rainy and blowy just when the colors get going. Down go those beautiful leaves, down into the first of the winter mud.

Living on wheels would seem to be the perfect solution. Just imagine a gradual migration, surfing the wave-crest of colors southward! That is what I expected out of my first fall migration, many equinoxes ago. Much to my surprise, when the October weather collapse happened up north, it quickly went south. There was no six-week-long autumn like I had fantasized, even when migrating from northern Michigan to the Texas Hill Country. The moral of the story is that latitude is over-rated.

Moving to the western states, latitude proved to be even more over-rated, compared to altitude or distance from the Pacific. Some years I would linger as long as possible in the Northwest. When the October weather collapse happened I migrated through the high desert of eastern Oregon and Nevada. It got colder as I went south. This killed any desire to explore the area. Good old Mt. Shasta or Jackpot NV -- it was always snowing. It was only near Lone Pine CA or Las Vegas or St. George UT that a thousand miles of driving produced noticeable warming.

Now I stay in the Southwest all year. This permits an autumn descent of the Colorado, Arkansas, Rio Grande or Pecos river systems in order to move south and become warmer. I actually started descending the Arkansas River several weeks ago, in early August. It is almost too easy and logical. I miss those floundering falls of RV newbie-hood.

This morning we had our first frost in Buena Vista and the first advection fog. Well, it's bedtime for Byoonie until next year. We're hitchin' up.

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