This. This, right here. Under no circumstances should the temperature ever be in the 40s in June, unless you’re up at a high altitude, or in Alaska. New Hampshire is not Alaska, and I’m sitting at only 1,200 feet above sea level. For the past two days, I was roasting with temperatures in the 90s. Now I’m cold in the 40s. New England doesn’t get spring. It gets a short-circuiting thermostat. Comfortable outside temperatures are rare.
It’s actually cooled down throughout the morning from the 50s we had overnight. That was fine, and it only got down to 60 inside the van thanks to the insulation. New England doesn’t get spring. It gets a short-circuiting thermostat. Comfortable outside temperatures are rare. Lister has been a total pain all morning, wanting to go out. I don’t want to open the door and let the heat out, so it’s been a constant battle.
I’ve had to set up my emergency heater, which is the Olympian Wave 3 that served me well in the previous van. I haven’t designed anywhere to keep the 20-pound propane tank inside Smokey II, so I swiped Yellow Wolf’s idea and ran the hose out the window to the tank sitting outside. (The window has to be open slightly to keep fresh air coming in anyway.) For the first time, I’m thankful for the 10-foot hose instead of tripping over it. I’m cranking it on high, and the temperature is slowly going up in here. I didn’t really think I’d need heat before I got the diesel heater installed (it arrives Tuesday, after it warms up again), but I’m glad I got the legs that let me set the Wave 3 on the floor, just like when I was building the last van while it was cold in New Hampshire. I have the roof vent closed but the fan on, in “ceiling fan” mode, to keep the air circulating and the heat spread evenly throughout the van.
It’s also raining on and off, making it feel even colder. I got a little sorting and inventory done on my stuff from storage in the trailer. I’m sad to see that the CD collection I’ve been carting around for years is nothing more than empty jewel cases, with the CDs themselves probably in some binder that I lost a long time ago. At least I don’t have to fight Apple to put music I already own onto my iPhone. I have DVDs as well, which I’d also like to put into a digital format that I can play on my TV. That’s less critical, though, since I can easily buy a small, cheap DVD player for those.
Because of the rain, I can’t move things out of the trailer to spread out a bit and really go through my stuff effectively. The table from my starter van has come in handy. It takes up most of the usable space remaining inside, but it works. I’ve made a list of what I have, and now I can sit inside the heated van to figure out what to do with it all. Most things will be going away, but there are a lot of things I’d rather not trash, either, because they’re in good condition. I might try to watch some TV or movies, too, but the two WiFi networks I can connect to are slow and unreliable. Still, to adopt an old racer’s saying, a bad day in the van is still better than a good day at work.
Smokey Da Van 