This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The hottest place I ever lived for any length of time was Fort Irwin, Calif., a desert warfare Army training post located just a few miles south of hell.

We moved there in 1966. I remember the first thought I had upon alighting from the overloaded station wagon in front of our quarters on Rhineland Drive.

"%&^@! Ow!"

I fell back into the barely air-conditioned car, where I slowly recovered from radiation burns. I wondered what treason the Old Man possibly could have committed to get orders for this place.

But we were stuck there for nearly two years. The average temperature in July was 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some days it got hotter than that. Nobody knows for sure how much hotter, because the human skull, even with a hat on it, begins to whistle and steam at 120.

From the front porch of our poorly evaporative-cooled duplex, it was fewer than 30 radiation-blistered miles to the southern edge of Death Valley. On a normal summer day, asphalt roads buckled, snakes exploded, and birds fell burning from the sky.

I remind myself of that time whenever I go outside in Utah lately. It's hot, dry and smoky. We may be 800 miles farther north of hell, but it advertises well here.

After those years in the desert — and I mean a real desert, one where it rarely rains and never snows — I shouldn't complain about the heat. I can't help it, though. I'm guessing it's because of age. When we're young, it takes longer to realize that it's too hot or too cold. That may be why teenagers walk to school in the middle of winter in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt.

My wife is from Canada. Utah summers are hell for her. She wouldn't have lasted five minutes in Fort Irwin, but then she wouldn't have married me if I had lived there when we met. She almost divorced me the first summer she lived here.

People say it's possible to acclimate to an area if you're raised or live there long enough. That might be true. These people also might be stupid, but there could be something to the claim.

Whenever the temperature in Fort Irwin plummeted to an unbelievable 68 degrees, we would stumble around wrapped in blankets and newspapers, hovering on the verge of hypothermia. Meanwhile, cousins visiting from Utah would be cavorting in swimsuits and flip-flops.

Them • "Hey, let's go swimming."

Us • "Can't. There's probably ice on the pool."

They didn't believe us, of course. But then they didn't know that swimming pools in our part of the world started boiling by mid-May.

I like the weather in Utah. I like it for about two weeks in June and two weeks in October.

You have to compensate. That's something I learned in a real desert. When it gets hot like this, you simply reverse the way you get ready for work or school. Get dressed and THEN get in the shower. By the time you arrive at the office or class, your clothes will have dried and cooled you in the process.

Either I'm a genius, or the sun in Fort Irwin hurt my head more than I think.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.