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What are "mosquitos"?  A kind of coast line?

We had spray trucks in the Chicago 'burbs. My dad actually had his own spray setup (we had a large yard in the house they moved to when I was a senior in HS, 1.15 acres) that he'd spray in the morning if we had any plans to have people over that day.

And yes, as utee mentions, Minnesota is terrible for mosquitos too.

Pretty much any place that has regular rainfall has mosquitos. The Midwest has plenty of water.

Lots of wetlands - breeding grounds.

Since we live close to the coast we have a lot of salt water marshes here that are very much tidal and always contain water.  Literally 2-3 miles before you get to the beach you'll basically enter a "desert" type area with no trees and no real grass and very swampy land.  I call it a desert because it's hot, barren, and there is no fresh water.  

Out of this swampland comes the pesky "salt marsh" mosquito that is absolutely packs 3x the punch of any inland mosquito.  Several times while going down to " the mouth of the river" I've literally seen a cloud of mosquitoes and you could audibly hear the buzzing from some distance away.  It looked like smoke except it didn't rise, it stayed at the same elevation and moved somewhat horizontally.  If you've ever seen a swarm like that it doesn't seem real.  

Yep, that was one of the biggest surprises moving from Chicago to SoCal. When there's almost no water vapor in the air, the instant you're in the shade it's an immediate relief as to how it feels. With humidity, that hot feeling is carried from the sun to the shade.

I do have a good shade cliff out back that provides an extra 1.5 hours of sun relief in the evening hours. 

We went on a hike in Joshua Tree, it wasn't all that hot of course.  My wife got annoyed at me because the sign said the hike was "Easy" and she didn't think so.  She wanted to turn around and retrace but I kept saying we're almost at the end (it was a loop).  She finally did turn around but we met someone coming from the other direction who said it was only a hundred yards to the parking lot.

The hike wasn't long but had some kind of uneven spots and climbs that made it a bit less than easy.

Canyon hikes are the cat's pajamas. Gradual climb, scenic, plenty of shade, a nice little stream of water, trees, vegetation, then all downhill on the way out. It's nearly impossible to get lost. 



Shadeless hikes in the blazing sun are for the birds. Especially if it's a steep-ass climb to an "overlook" where you get a great view for ten seconds, only to turn around and hike back down.