Alright, it's now 30 minutes into the hot hours and I'm starting to sweat despite the constant water spray. The water is not evaporating -- the air is as still as a corpse. Will I be able to stick it out till 5PM? Stay tuned. I'll stay in the shade and write blogs till then. If I get tired of it, I'll play guitar or edit photos. I have enough to keep me entertained even without the Internet.
12:20AM, It's still bearable. The occasional breeze pushes hot air into shade, but the dry air still helps evaporate water and sweat. I'm sweating but that doesn't matter; I'm half naked and I'll take a bath this evening. I just need to stay hydrated. So far so good.
It's now 1PM and I'm still not hungry. The heat must be suppressing my appetite. I was going do some cooking today, but I gave up on that idea. It's just no fun cooking when hot. I'll instead have a can of soup and bread. I left the bread in the fridge so it's nice and cold. And the salty soup will hit the spot.
1:30 PM, now I'm all fed, hydrated and content. I think I'll crawl into the tent and take a nap. I threw a heat shield on the tent in the morning and the inside of the tent is actually a bit cooler than the outside. See? I told you, the sun is the enemy. You reflect the sunlight back into the space, and the temperature drops. They should seriously think about the sunlight reflector in the sky to solve the global warming problem.
1:45 PM, the tent is no longer cooler than outside. The hot air blowing in from outside equalized the temperature. I'll sit under the tree and do some more photo editing and then crawl into the back of the car if I get tired. I still have options to beat the heat.
2:15PM, the computer is almost out of battery. I'll plug it in and crawl into the back of the car while it charges.
3:50PM. The problem with climbing in the car is that it is hard to climb back out. What was bearable before no longer is once you are acclimatized to the air conditioner. I could stay in and roll around till the sun goes down, but I need to conserve the juice. The nearest supercharger is 50 miles away in Loomis or Yuba City, and spending 100 miles and 3 hours to gain extra 100 miles is not worth the trouble. And running the air conditioner in hot weather takes about 5 miles off the tank per hour. Now I have 91 miles left in the tank which would be barely enough to make the loop through Hoyt's Crossing and and Mountain Dog via Nevada City, and then make it back home the next day. I will have to stop at Marriott in Grass Valley for some extra juice. They have a Tesla charger and may let me plug in for an hour which will be good for 50 extra miles.
4PM, the heat has abated a bit. I'm not spraying water and yet I haven't fainted with heat stroke. The hot hours are from 11AM to sundown, but the worst is between 1PM and 4PM, it appears. Just keep hydrated for a few more hours and I'll be alright. If I get tired of water, I have Pepsi in the fridge.
5:30PM. The day is coming to an end and I need to bathe before mosquitos return. I'm getting very good at conserving water: I use less than a gallon to bathe and wash my clothes at the same time. I'll need to reformulate Dr. Bronner's soap though. I took only about a spoonful of it and diluted into a quart. It obviously wasn't enough: it left my hair still a bit sticky even after soaping up twice.
7:30PM. There still is some sun left, but mosquitos returned. I'm moving indoor and staying there till they go away. It's still too warm to cook, so I'll wait.
8:30PM. The sun is completely gone and it is starting to get dark. I need to cook and eat before it gets too dark. I don't feel like elaborate cooking; it's still too warm for that. I'll just fix a ramen soup. The salty soup will be nice after a sweaty day. I'm sweating again while cooking.
9:30PM. Mosquitos don't go away when the sun goes down. The air is thick with mosquitos all evening long. I made a mistake of going out topless to brush my teeth and I got bitten all over. I'll have to get a DEET spray. And get the indoor plumbing worked out so that I don't have to go outdoor to brush my teeth or pee while mosquitos are active.
Epilogue:
It appears that I can manage the heat. But it's not that fun. I need to lie down and rest on my off days to manage my ME/CFS and the heat prevents me from doing that. I'll have to avoid heat by following the snowbird schedule and stay high during the summer. If the heat is unavoidable, then I'll just go to hotel and rest. Whatever I do, I'll need to keep in mind that I'm doing this to rehabilitate myself out of ME/CFS; the last thing I want to do is to make it worse by over-stressing my body.
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