Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada (aka the hottest place we've been in the van)

We didn't have original plans to go to Lake Mead when we left Salt Lake City, but Adam had an inkling that Lake Mead was famous for some reason. Though he believed it was famous from the movie Into the Wild, he quickly understood that Lake Mead is famous because of the Hoover Dam. Taking our time and stalling a little before our next destination, we stayed at Boulder Beach Campground for three nights.

Camping

Lake Mead National Recreation Area has multiple first-come, first-served campgrounds with varying amenities. Boulder Beach Campground has restrooms and water, but no electric hook-ups and no showers. We selected this campground purely out of convenience; it was closest to our route and the other campgrounds were on the opposite side of the lake. We really enjoyed the campground when we got there.

Selecting a site was a bit difficult because most of them had zero shade. In a van with no AC, we wanted at least a little bit of shade during at least half the day. We selected a site with a big-canopied tree nearby. We had a picnic table, fire ring, and a big cement pad. We used our extra space to empty the back of the van, vacuum out a lot of dog hair, dirt, and sand that had been accumulating over the last month or so, and reorganize our adventure gear. It was nice to have all that space.

Swimming

Boulder Beach, along the Boulder Basin, is a one-mile long public beach in the national recreation area. It requires an entrance fee or a National Park Service annual pass for entrance. There is no beach access from the campground or RV park in this part of the park. It's about a mile walk down to the water from the campground we stayed at. We did this multiple times throughout our stay, but we also drove the van down to the beach a few times. Boulder Beach does not allow dogs, but the beach connecting to it, Special Events Beach, does. We simply parked in the gravel parking lot and walked over the mound of dirt separating the beaches and set up our chairs by the water.

Adam brought his snorkeling gear out and searched around the beaches for any treasures. He found a fishing lure and a selfie stick, but that's about it. We drug those out of the water to the dumpsters as an effort to do our part to keep the water clean. Acadia was a huge fan of splashing around in the more shallow water, just like at the Great Salt Lake. We got her out into some deeper water. She's a great swimmer! She didn't like being near us and not being on top of us though, so we would hold her between laps to the shore. The water was pretty chilly so she shivered a lot in the water, but it was better than being in the 100 degree heat.

How did we survive the heat?

The high temperatures while we were at Lake Mead were 100 degrees and the UV high was 9 almost every day. There was not a cloud in the sky any day. This was great for evening stargazing, but horrible for sleeping and horrible for staying cool during the day. We did our best by putting our window covers up, having windows down, pulling in air with the fan, and keeping the side door open for the best airflow we could get. When it got too hot in the van, we tried sitting in the shade because we could catch the wind better. That lasted about an hour before we were sitting in puddles of sweat. It was really uncomfortable most of the day.

The inside of the van got over 100 degrees every day and didn't get below 80 any night. We came back from the beach one day to an overheated Goal Zero power station. This was a new scare we haven't yet experienced. Even in Texas it didn't get this hot. We ran the van a few times during the day and right before bed to try and cool the van off, but it didn't stay cool for more than 15 minutes after the AC was off.

We didn't want to be at the lake during peak heat, because we really didn't want to be in the sun during those high-UV intensities. We found activities that got us in the van during mid-afternoon because we would run the AC and stay cool. These activities included getting gas, grocery shopping, and going to the Hoover Dam. Adam got great pictures at the Hoover Dam, but that was about the best part of that trip. Neither of us are a huge fan of hydroelectric power or man-made dams, so it was not very impressive to us. At least we can both say we've been there.

Madi thought it was cool that she finally walked between two states. Adam had done so during his Appalachian Trail adventures, but this was the first time Madi crossed a state line (Arizona to Nevada and back) on foot.

We tried this technique to cool the van down. With the humidity at only 6%, the homemade air conditioner should have been effective. However, the ice melted too fast and the van was too hot to make a huge difference. We drank the ice water, shared it with Acadia, and that was much more effective.

This was also the first time we actually kept water in the fridge. We kept a water bottle, empty juice bottles, and a cleaned-out milk jug full of water in the fridge. Every time we drank some, we filled it from the tap nearby. It was nice to consistently have cold water. That's one of those things that we really appreciate now that we've been in the van for almost a year. We don't have a functioning water tap (just our gravity-fed jug) so we don't have cold water on tap. Having fridge space for water has been a game changer and we've decided to keep water in there for the foreseeable future.

While it sometimes felt like we were barely making it through the heat, but we survived and now we know we could never live in the desert. We also know what areas to avoid traveling to because of heat. The van is well insulated so it's difficult to cool and keep cool when it's this hot outside. We suppose this means we did a great job at our build, but it also means we have to be very careful where and when we go different places in the southwest. As summer starts in the north, we will be selecting our destinations with weather in mind.