Not an exaggeration. By midafternoon the temp on the covered porch in back was 118 degrees. Fahrenheit, that is.
It’s 9:00 p.m. now and the heat persists: 105 in the dark. This afternoon I needed to make a quick Costco run, pump some gas, buy a couple of necessities. Walking across the parking lot made one’s skin feel burnt, exposed to something way, way too hot. God only knows what the temperature was over the asphalt surface. I sure don’t want to know.
A tiny storm blew across the Valley late in the afternoon, not enough to drop any rain to speak of but plenty to drop a bushel of devil-pod leaves and seed pods into the pool. Whee!
In Yarnell, the seedy little above-the-Mogollon-Rim wide spot in the road I dream of—my Gloccamorra, my Bali Hai—the heat topped out at 98. The night will drop to 75 degrees, and as we scribble it’s 85 up there. Tomorrow night will be around 70 degrees, and the high on Monday will be 88.
Yesterday KJG and I drove up to Yarnell, where we spent a fair amount of the day hanging out with La Maya and La Bethulia, who are happily reclaiming their weekend home from La Maya’s sister and BiL, who, after renting it for four years, have succeeded in finding their own home, down in the Chino Valley. La Maya is especially thrilled to have her escape from GDU back. La Bethulia, who spent rather more time than she wished on the roof fiddling with the swamp cooler, has other ideas…sale, for example.
But oh! it was so cool, so quiet, and so lovely up there! We visited our favorite purveyor of tourist gewgaws, the Yarnell Emporium, where a short in the electrical system had knocked out the air-conditioning. Our favorite saleslady was disgusted: melting in the heat, said she. Inside the shop, we thought it was pleasantly cool. One person’s 85 degrees is another person’s Carlsbad Caverns cool.
Don’t believe me? Along about 7:00 p.m. this evening, the AC in my house was set to 80 degrees. And so it was in the hall, in the middle of the house as far as possible from an exterior wall, where the thermostat dwells. The bedrooms? 82 degrees. The kitchen, where nothing for dinner was cooked indoors? 88 degrees.
Back in Yarnell (that would be yesterday), La Maya remarked that the house their friends Bill and Joe rebuilt and turned into a sweet little palace is for sale. Wouldn’t we like to see it?
Well, why not? What else did we have to do? So we dropped by Hill Top Realty and asked a bored Realtor if she wouldn’t like to take us over there. Hot dang…anything to get out of the office! How many times can a person manicure her nails in front of the computer?
So with a little ado, she extracted the alarm system code and a few other key bits of information from the listing agent, and off we went to view the place.
O. M. G. Is it sweet!
Big kitchen with tons of cabinet space and counter space. Dishwasher, a rarity in Arizona’s rural towns. Breakfast nook. Huge separate dining room.
Master bedroom: larger than my family room and dining room combined. Current owners have a king-sized bed and all the bedroom accoutrements in there, and a set of overstuffed chairs and accompanying tables and lamps in there.
Two other bedrooms, one as large as my master bedroom.
Vast living room with a beautiful fireplace.
A separate office, off the dining room looking out onto the boulder-strewn backyard.
Backyard: good freaking grief. It backs onto a great pile of granite boulders. When it rains, a waterfall pours off the boulders into a well designed, rock-lined drainage stream that directs the water down through a side yard and away from the house.
The backyard is very private. It cannot be seen from the neighbors’ yards. There is a trail through the rocks above, part of the world-famous Yarnell Shrine. The occasional tourist would stroll by…and by occasional, we mean “rare.”
In the side yard: A raised garden with soaker hoses and wire shelter to fend of the javelina and hungry birds.
Front yard (huge!): a spectacular art fountain procured from a Prescott artist. Trees. Ornamentals. Blue spruce. Xeric landscaping. Peaceful, pretty, quiet. One house from the end of a cul-de-sac.
Two-and-a-half-car detached garage: room for a ton of storage, the Dog Chariot, and a nice golf cart for junketing around town.
No pool. No effing helicopters. No traffic roar. No sirens. No heat.
Gosh.
They want $199,000 for it, about what I probably could get for my house if I’m lucky. However, Realtor Lady remarked that these days Yarnellites will accept just about any bid they get. She suggested just coming up with a figure and offering it: nothing ventured, nothing gained. If I could get it for $150,000 and it really doesn’t need any upgrades or fix-up (on the surface, it appears to be a turnkey sort of thing), I could afford it.
On the other hand…
My son is down here.
All my friends are down here.
Choir is down here.
My pseudo-job is down here.
The pseudo-job, I could deal with: rent an apartment or camp out with SDXB and other friends for the days I have to physically coalesce in front of a classroom. A pain in the ass, but doable.
Hm. Because the house has a separate, dedicated office, both of the secondary bedrooms could function as guest bedrooms: enough space for two couples to come up out of the heat. Allll summer long. The friends problem could be addressed.
Yarnell.
♥
Could you rent there for a month or so each summer?
@ frugalscholar: I wish! But not with almost no income and two houses to support, one of which the New! Improved! Zillow tells us us $110,000 underwater. I have to work all summer.