Dog Days

It's hot.  Like 111 in the shade at 5 pm hot.  (seriously, yesterday....!  but today's high was 98 and sticky!) 

I'm OK with it.... it's usually a dry heat, after all.  I've been in hotter places.  Like the time when I was a teenager on a family vacation and dealing with a breakdown that required us to spend 13 hours in hell lawnchairs on the side of the freeway along that long, straight, boring uphill stretch of I-15 outside of Baker, CA on the way to Vegas.  Anyone who has driven from LA to Vegas knows exactly where that is.

Diagnosis: Vapor Lock. It's where it's so damn hot outside, that the gasoline inside your tank vaporizes into gas and the car won't go anymore. Because it needs to drink liquid, not huff fumes. Kinda like us. This was back in the day when cars didn't have that little dash guage telling us how hot is was. On previous breakdowns, we would just sit around with sweat dripping out of our hair and we would guess. We may have had a thermometer in the boat we were towing or maybe we just guessed for fun, without affirmation. But this trip, we had proof positive staring at us for hours. In the shape of a GIANT thermometer. The World's Largest Thermometer, actually. And the only thing that Baker, CA is known for.  It was 127 degrees and super humid.  Did I mention we were out there in the elements for 13 hours???  Yes, it was after midnight before the car cooled down sufficiently to cause the gas molucles in the tank to stop bouncing around so much and re-form that liquid gold which cars so desire.  Good times.

Well, it was hot and humid out today so instead of serving a nice healthy, boring lunch, as usual, I took the gaggle of girls out to Rite Aid for ice cream.  They were estactic.  Then they were messy.

Life is good.


PS -- Because it's late at night, my AC is set for 79 degrees.  It just kicked on.  Really?  At 12:10 AM?


Photo credit:  me (girls), and http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2893 (thermometer)