I decided to do some rock hounding over the weekend, and had heard that Bottle Rock Road in Lake County (California) was a good place to find obsidian, so I went over there to find some. I was also looking for Lake County diamonds (found a few of those, too!), but that is another story. Obsidian is just about my favorite kind of volcanic ejecta - it is volcanic glass, has all of the properties of glass, but occurs naturally (you can see through it to some degree, and a broken piece of it will give you a nasty cut if you are not careful how you handle it) and to me it is very beautiful.
Anyway, the campground I went to is a bit high up in the Lake County foothills. I arrived when the sun was just going down, and it was in the high 60's, but with the setting of the sun it cooled off pretty fast. I cooked a quick supper outside on the picnic table wearing my down jacket, then got out inside the van, got my heater and turned it on low, and then settled in for the night.
At about 2:00 a.m. I woke up pretty cold, and a bit surprised, thinking that my heater had stopped working for some reason. I opened my eyes and looked at it and, yes, it was still on - so I reached over and dialed it up a bit, and was soon toasty.
One of the things I have done thus far in my travels is to take a thermometer with me. I keep it inside the van while I sleep (so I can check the inside temp when I wake up) then I take it outside and leave it on the picnic table while I walk the dogs in the morning (so I can check the outside temp, and compare the range between the two).
When I woke up Saturday morning it was almost too warm in the van. I checked the thermometer, and it read a warm 70 (seventy) degrees inside (I usually sleep at home with the house temp set at 65). So I got up, put the thermometer outside on the picnic table, walked the dogs, came back inside and fooled around for a bit, and then went back out to check the thermometer.
Boy, was I ever surprised! I knew it was cold outside, because my gloveless hands had started to get a bit numb while walking the dogs, but this? I had to look twice. The thermometer on the picnic table had frosted over during the twenty minutes or so it had been out there, and I had to rub the frost off before I could read it. The thermometer read a (very!) cool 13 (yes, thirteen!!) degrees.
With the a/c unit I put in last summer, and with the insulation, I know that I can do temps up to about 110 or so. I hadn't ever planned on staying anywhere when it was predicted to be below 35 or so - but with this totally unplanned "test", I now know that I can go just about where ever the van will take me.
Anyone interested in my van build, and the insulation I put in, can read my blog, link below. Basically, I installed 2 1/2" of styrofoam panel insulation in the walls, and about 2" of the same in the ceiling and in all four doors. This is the same stuff that is made to insulate homes. I have also made panels that insulate the windows (when I am stopped). I bring electricity for my heater into the van through the passenger's side window, which I leave cracked. This gives room for the cord and a crack for fresh air.
This is the heater I chose for my van:
This is the Delonghi Solaris
I really like this kind of heater because it is radiant heat (doesn't dry out the air) it doesn't have a fan (so it doesn't make noise - it is dead silent) and doesn't get super hot on the outside (so that if you accidentally drop something on it for a minute or two, it doesn't catch on fire). You can actually touch it when it is running on the low setting - it feels hot, but not hot enough to burn you. It does take a bit to warm things up, but it definitely gets the job done.
I had kind of guesstimated that the van would be good with this heater down to thirty-five degrees or so. I felt confident that I could be comfortable inside when the outside temp was no lower than 35 degrees, and never would have thought to try the van out in temps lower than this - but 13? Wow.
Anne
