Fry Boys

It was 111 degrees when we stopped at Dateland, AZ, for a date shake. There’s not much town to Dateland, AZ, but there are date palms and a gas station with a gift shop and a date store where I bought a package of dates for $14 and two date shakes which are super thick, creamy milkshakes with a scoop of chopped up, gooey, sugary dates.

This may sound weird to those not into road trips but we changed the entire route of our trip in order to get a date shake. It had been three years since our last shake. An eternity.

The day started hot and got hotter. Triple digit hot. So hot we had to figure out how to get our old retired sled dogs out of the car without them having to walk on pavement, so hot that when I poured water for them out of the camping jug, the water was hot enough to make tea, so hot I thought one or both of them might just keel over if we kept them outside too long. So hot I could read the headlines of my angst – Wisconsin woman stupidly kills sled dogs in Arizona heat.

But we arrived at our destination. It was a lovely 79 degrees when we rolled into San Diego. We are staying in a very hip, busy neighborhood in a tiny, adorable studio apartment and our dogs are asleep on the cool floor.

There is air conditioning. And a fan. All is well.