First of all, I hope all of you had a fabulous Fourth of July. Ours was lowkey. My daughter invited us over for lunch and we enjoyed a lovely caprese salad and a dip in her pool. (Our pool is out of commission at the moment- more on that later). I wore this beaded flag bracelet that I made over 10 years ago to honor the day.
Summertime in Tucson is HOT. And the last couple of years temps have soared even higher. A lot of our neighbors do a reverse snowbird flight out of Tucson and leave for summer homes in cooler climates. Our strategy has been to schedule a vacation in June or July or August. This year it backfired on us a little as we scheduled a trip in June to Greece to sail the Aegean Sea. It was on a beautiful sailing ship.
And this June was our 50th wedding anniversary so it sounded so romantic. I expected it to be hot but the temperatures in Europe while we were there were broiling. Add humidity too and well it was not pleasant.
In previous years we scheduled trips to Oregon or Canada and enjoyed crisp summer days and cool mornings and evenings. I have to remember this for 2026.
Actually, we have 2 summers in Tucson. It is described as having 5 seasons with 2 short summers - one dry summer in June and a wet summer in July and August when we are blessed with monsoon rains.
I usually don’t mind the heat. I arrange my days to avoid being outside in the heat of the day. If I get up early enough, I can still walk in the morning and end the walk with a quick dip in the pool. It’s amazing how cool you can feel getting out of the water even when its 100. But right now, here is a picture of our pool.
Early in June I was notified by Oro Valley water company that I was using too much water. Well it turned out our pool developed a leak and as the water leaked out of the pool our automatic fill line tried to keep up. It couldn’t. It ran continuously!
How do you even find where a pool is leaking?
Turns out there are leak detection companies out there and that was the first step. Then I had to hire a pool contractor and they dug up flagstone looking for the pipe the leak detection discovered. The exact pipe ran directly under the pool and as luck would have it the leak turned out to be exactly in the middle of the pool. So, they had to drain the pool. Then, hello to a little jackhammering. Pipe is now fixed but first a pressure test before cement has to be poured, and then a new finish has to be applied to the bottom of the pool before I will see water again.
So that brings me to what I hate most about summer in Tucson - no cold water out of the faucets. You turn on the cold tap and I swear I could brew tea with the water coming out. So, I smiled when this photo popped up in my Facebook feed.
I just might have to try this!
Stay cool! and thanks for being here.
Louise X
Sorry it was so hot in Greece. We always traveled in late fall or early spring because of that. And they don’t have AC like we do. I’m really spoiled.
Hope you can enjoy your pool before it gets cool.