Camping Out

No I haven't been able to leave yet, although I did stay in Gypsy last night. We have an extreme heat wave going on here. The temperatures have been well over 100 degrees during the day. Even at night it has been way too hot.  As I have for the past week, I sat at my computer dripping sweat as the air conditioner labored to do nothing. Understand this was all taking place at around 9pm. I finally gave up, if I was going to sweat anyway, I might as well do something.  First in the order though was a cold bath to cool down. After that I put the portable AC in Gypsy so I could have some relief from the heat.  The job for tonight was to cut down some of those silver folding sun screens that go in the front windshield. I wanted them for the back and side glasses too. I thought if the front one made such a difference... then all the way around should be wonderful.  When they are not needed I can fold them away. After about 30 minutes of working on the one for the rear window I realized.. this is as cool as I have been all day.  After a bit I decided it was going to be more comfortable to stay in Gypsy tonight. Unfortunately, finally getting cool caused me to abandon the window screen project with only two of them done.

I guess I need to take a moment to explain why the house is so hard to cool.  This house belonged to my Mother. She absolutely loved it. It made her happy and that was all that mattered. But this house was build in 1843. It is the oldest house in the area.  It was not designed for AC.  It has 15 foot ceilings, hand hewn wood floors and all slave-made brick walls.  When the weather is reasonable, AC is almost not needed.  You can open the front and back doors to a constant breeze. In this kind of heat though, it is a job to keep it cool. I hope we can find a buyer that will love it as much as my Mother.  This house was her dream, mine is to travel slow and light.

Ok, back to the subject at hand.  It is now noon the next day.  I am still in Gypsy, although she is starting to get a bit warmer.  If I had finished the screens she would probably still be cool.  The sun is bearing down on the passenger side windows at the moment, and they are without screens.  I leave everything on the drivers side in place because I don't use those windows when I drive.  But passenger and rear window stuff is designed to be stowed when I drive.

Here is Gypsy with AC installed

Here is another of Gypsy in camping mode

If you notice, I try to do all of Gypsy's modification in a way that will not alter her permanently.  If I stripped her back down to a plain minivan conversion, all you would see are some very tiny holes where I installed the small eye hooks to hold the curtains.  So far that is the only permanent alteration that has been made.