This year in Denver, it got hot and it got hot quickly. The first 90 degree temperature occurred on May 19th. This would be followed by the third hottest June on record, featuring 17 days where temperatures exceeded 90ºF.

The heat continued into July with no end in sight.

Forecast for July 10-12 issued July 9

Having spent over a dozen winters in the Midwest, I generally welcome the heat. However, having to always get outdoor activities in first thing in the morning or just before sundown can get tiring after a while.

A heat wave is also an opportunity! In Colorado, we can always escape the heat by going up to the mountains. Many ski resorts in the Central Rockies display their comfotable average summertime temperatures when promoting their summertime activities. However, it is always cold at night! It has actually been five years since I’ve been camping somewhere with pleasant nighttime temperatures. A mid summer heat wave provides the opportunity to camp at high elevations without feeling too cold.

With the recent hot and dry weather, the one thing that would not be available is fire. We arrived at a campsite in the Gunnison National Forest at 9 P.M., three hours before a fire ban would take effect.

I sometimes enjoy arriving at a Campsite right around dusk.

Sure, it is not as fun to set up camp with limited light. But, there is something interesting about not knowing what your surroundings really look like until waking up the next morning. The sun rises from behind the mountains gradually revealing to you where you are.

In some ways, it felt like I failed to escape the heat. Despite being in at higher elevation, daytime temperatures reached the 90s at the campsite. In some of the places we drove to, they were even a bit hotter.

However, perhaps because of how dry it was, overnight the temperatures would drop down into the 40s. Not uncomfortably cold, but cool enough to actually desire some hot tea in the morning, something I hadn’t done in Denver in a month.

Our campsite, on a mostly empty dirt road in the Gunnison National Forest was surrounded by natural beauty. The angle of the river valley provided for beautiful sunsets.

However, my favorite part of the experience was definitely the river.

Each day, we’d hike in the heat, arrive back at the campground in the afternoon, and cool off in the river. The movement of the shallow flow of water over rocks was something I found fascinating.

I would stare at it, both while in the water and while at the campsite overlooking the river.

The evenings seems to go on forever. Due to the north-south orientation of this particular river, the sun would cease to hit the river just after 6 P.M. However, daylight would go on until about 9. Endless evenings brought back memories of childhood. I thought of playing in the park, the neighborhood or the backyard until the very last bit of light faded from the horizon. I thought back to teenage years, doing things like playing mini-golf, hanging out at a park, or cruising around in our cars. Everything felt so playful and peaceful despite the fact that all these memories were not without frustration, conflict and setbacks. There is something about children and young adults playing outside in the evening that just feels more basically human than much of what we do in adulthood.

After a day or so away from work and screens, I started to feel my creativity surge back into my brain, as if the constant bombardment of information had been suppressing it for weeks. I looked across the river at the trees on the other side and thought…

This would make the most frustrating puzzle of all time!

The flood of ideas and realizations about life flying into my mind made me want to de-clutter my life.

However, in the city I hardly ever allow myself to be bored or unproductive. I wondered if I’d ever be okay with just doing nothing. After half an hour, I determined that the world would have to be a much different place for me to be okay with taking a day, or even half of a day, without doing anything “productive”. There would need to be much less pressure, much less work, and much less other things to track and take care of.

But that’s okay because my definition of “productive” is broad. Sharing experiences with people, cultivating relationships and reading and writing about interesting topics is productive. It’s not just work and achievement.

I came out of this experience feeling better about my life. Most of what I am doing is fine, I just need to relax a little bit more. I feel like had I spent the entire evening focused on staying warm while also staying out of the smoke that comes off a campfire, it would have been a much different experience. The continuing threat of COVID limiting travel and the fire bans were both disruptive events. This experience and the realizations I came to from it was the result of working with what life handed to me, rather than just wishing the disruptive events had not happened.