(The Associated Press circulated the following article on August 12.)
BAKER, Calif. — The thermometer read 114 degrees when John Kerry left his air-conditioned campaign bus to gaze up at an electronic sign that locals call the world’s tallest thermometer.
“It’s a lot cooler than it was in Las Vegas,” Kerry said. Temperatures hit 122 degrees on Tuesday as the Democratic presidential nominee campaigned in the city of wedding chapels and casinos.
About 50 people, including a dozen or so Bush supporters, waited in the withering heat for Kerry’s coast-to-coast tour to roll into town. Situated on the edge of the Mojave National Preserve, Baker calls itself the Gateway to Death Valley.
Supporters were rewarded for their wait with handshakes and autographs before Kerry headed into the Original Bun Boy Restaurant to cool off with a coffee shake, served with a small blue umbrella.
“It’s an amazing way to see America,” Kerry said before he headed back out into the heat to the tune of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” playing from his campaign bus.
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The campaign traveled 3,880 miles in 11 days, starting in Boston, to get to Las Vegas.
“I hope I get frequent flier bus miles,” Kerry told a group of seniors in Henderson, Nev. “Frequent flyer train miles.”
With so much nonstop travel, it’s no wonder the candidate and his wife started to get a little confused about where they were.
“Hello, Nevada!” Teresa Heinz Kerry said to a crowd at the railroad station in Williams, a town she quickly realized was actually in Arizona.
“Arizona!” she said. “We are in Arizona and we’re going to Nevada.”
Earlier in the journey, at a ball game in Taylor, Mich., Kerry tried to warm up the crowd by giving a big cheer for Buckeye football, forgetting the campaign hadn’t gotten to Ohio, the Buckeye state, just yet.
A couple boos from the crowd alerted him to the mistake, and he quickly steered a correct course. “Now I’m in the great state of Michigan,” he said and gave a big thumbs-up to the University of Michigan.
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For a change of pace in the nonstop bus and train tour of the nation, Kerry boarded a helicopter to get a bit closer to the mile-deep Grand Canyon. It took seven helicopters to carry Kerry, Heinz Kerry, security agents and a troop of reporters following the campaign.
The spectacular scenery provided a postcard backdrop for Kerry to talk about national park funding and the opportunity for a quick hike.
“Teddy Roosevelt stood right here at the Grand Canyon, and he looked out at it and said, ‘Leave it as it is. You can’t improve on it,”’ Kerry said.
Kerry couldn’t persuade his wife to get a closer look. She resisted walking to the edge to peer over the South rim to the Colorado River below.