Summer Car Blues . . . or is it Reds?

When I was a kid, all car seats were made out of dinosaur skin.

No, just kidding.

When I was a kid, all the car seats I had to deal with were made out of wicked ass vinyl. During the summer, this vinyl would heat up to about the temperature of the third ring of Hell.  When you, as a child, slid your beshortwearing legs onto these seats, it would cause almost unspeakable pain.  Some parents would keep towels down for their hapless little kinder.  It honestly didn't help a lot.  It just meant you sat on a hot towel. Sitting on dinosaur seats probably would have been easier.

These days, the seats are no longer made of pain-inducing vinyl hell, but we still have a lot of summer automobile issues. Like with most things in adult life, any solution seems to have its own consequences and annoyances.

We have a carport but it's used to house Rabbit Killer, the Mazda 323.  RK has a problem with leaks . . . actually, it's quite successful with leaks. The trunk gets its own swimming pool. However, because duct tape could not stop the leaking, the Mazda has to live in the carport.

This means the van has live exposed to and subject to the elements.  It sucks.  During the winter, the van is usually covered in ice or snow (assuming there is ice or snow).  During the summer, it gets hot as hell. No one wants to get into a hot car, so we've had to come up with some strategies for handling this.

The first one and the most obvious is that we keep the windows rolled down about an inch. This works as well as it can. It cuts the heat from being unfathomable to just slightly under unfathomable. The problem is, half the time we start getting rain possibilities and we have to go out and shut the whole thing down.

We also have one of those things that covers the front windshield to block out the heat and sun. I won't say it doesn't work. It does. However, it flakes everywhere and it's difficult to put in place. My roommate says one of his favorite amusements is watching me try and put it in by myself.  Bastard thing won't stay in place.

Probably the best way for us to keep the temp in the van down is to park it in the shade. We have some trees that provide very nice coverage for it and do an excellent job in keeping the car from frying. Parking under the trees has two drawbacks. One, it means walking farther to the house. As I'm walking more these days, this isn't such a big deal . . . except when my knee is killing me. The other problem with the trees is that it is messy.  Birds crap on the van. Sap gets on the windows. We're getting every other time we drive, the windows are going to have to be washed.

Still, on days when we get keep the windows down an inch or so, have the sunblocker in the front of the van and have it parked in the shade, we certainly have a more pleasant driving experience. I just wish all of these things didn't have their own special sets of bitchery along with them.

Even still, it's better than flesh on hot vinyl.