I hate to sound like an old fart on a rant here, but it's just too d@mn hot!
There's almost nothing my wife and I enjoy more in the summer than just dropping the top and finding some roads that we haven't been on before and just cruisin' the day away. Pack a lunch in the cooler, find a shady spot to eat, and just have fun. Sometimes we'll find a local show or cruise in and just sit there and talk cars with other people. Sometimes we'll drive until the road ends, and because I live in southern Maryland, that usually means we wind up at a beach somewhere. We've found some great people, beaches and little eateries over the years while driving around.

However, this past June and July has been miserable. I don't know about you guys, but the past 2 months in my area have been the hottest on record. Last week, we actually hit 115 with the humidity. It seems like every day for the past few months has been over 90 and many have been 95+. Coupled with that wonderful mid-Atlantic stickiness, it's no fun at all. My friends have been like "But you have a convertible with a/c. The heat shouldn't be a problem." Wrong! Once it gets 95+, having the top down stops being fun after the 1st hour in that kind of heat.

This summer so far has been almost a complete bust for cruisin'. Where I live, May was one of the rainiest months on record. June, it started getting really hot and we had no rain at all. Forget the lawn, I was doing everything I could just to keep the garden alive. So far, July is even worse than June. Not counting the humidity it's going to be over 100 for the 3rd day in a row here (which hasn't happened in almost 100 years). Everyone just stays inside, or runs from one place with a/c to another. I'm dreading what the electric bill is going to be. My wife has cabin fever because it's too hot outside and she can't even take the dog for a walk at 8 in the morning w/o coming home covered in sweat.

Forget summer! Bring on the fall. I want to enjoy the outside once again!

 

'Cabin fever' is when you are stuck in the house because of rain and snow or bad weather and want to get outdoors because you've been cooped up for a long period.

 

My wife and I like to do that too, only here in Texas it turns into a three day weekend event. I agree, too hot!

 

I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down!

When I was a young man, my ex and our three little ones lived in rural south Texas, 30 miles north of the second most humid reporting station in the NOAA network. Being young, we lived OK without air conditioning. Helped by the fact that being hippies we went without clothes in the house during summer.

But what a treat it was to go for a cruise in the 1963 Bonneville convertible during the day and turn on the air conditioning. Like you, we would plan a picnic lunch at some spot wherever the road took us.

It was only after the sun went low that we would put down the top and enjoy the breeze. That was memorable as well.

 

Trust me. Cabin fever is what she has. I'm at work from 6am-6pm and because of traffic I leave in the morning at 4:30 and don't usually get home until almost 7pm. The 2 kids still at home are gone during the day. Both work during the day and have classes at night. The younger one uses her car to do this. So, she's trapped at home with only the dog. It's too hot after 10am to walk him, so she stays home, reads, cleans and tries out new recipes for us for dinner. She's like me. She has a low tolerance for boredom and if she's home, she likes to be outside in the yard or playing in the garden. She's not a big TV watcher. Being stuck in the house is driving her, and consequently me, nuts.

 

That's the crazy thing too. I grew up w/o a/c in PA. The only breeze we ever got in the summer were the box fans that my Mom put in the windows. Of course, they were pointed out and not in and heaven forbid if you moved them. My wife grew up in Texas. So we both grew up with the heat. But after joining the Navy, between my job (computers/imagery, spending my shifts in an air conditioned room set at 60 degrees wearing foul weather coats to stay warm) and being overseas in northern Scotland for my first few years in, neither one of us could deal with the heat once we got back stateside.

 

You all have it easy. I own a plant nursery, so outside all day trying to keep 50,000 plants alive. Mother Nature is a bitch to work for.

In the spring all I here is it must be nice to work outside all year. Yeah right.

 

That's actually why I joined the Navy. I got tired of working outside in the heat/cold and wanted to see how the other half lived. 30+ years later I'm too acclimatized to working in the a/c.

 

It's definitely been hot around here. I'm grateful we have a pool in the back yard.

 

It's been an extremely hot summer again here in the St. Louis area too, after setting an all time record average temp last summer. It was 101° yesterday in the shade with 52% humidity. I had wanted to take my car to a nice show this past Sunday, but with the temperature being near a 100° and no guarantee of getting a parking spot near any shade I passed on going. I was bitching to my wife about the heat and my decision not to go, and then she reminded me of the roofing crew that was working on a new house behind us (pic) in the same temp for 12-hours just two days prior! I shut up and thought, man what am I bitching about. It's all relative right, it could always be worse, but I certainly agree it's been too damn hot to enjoy the outdoors in many parts of the country.

 

This was 9a Sunday morning in the shop with the front and back doors up. Yup, it's hot, and getting older doesn't help.

 

You sound like me.
I bowed out of a show this past weekend because the idea of sitting in an asphalt parking lot for 7 hours in 95+ with no shade other than my 8x8 pavilion just did not sound appealing. It does take some of the wind out of my sails to hear that it's that hot out in St. Louis though. My wife and I are going out that way in a little over a week to see our eldest.

 

You can usually count on low 90°'s and 60% humidity around the St. Louis area during most of July and August, but triple digits is just way over the top, although it unfortunately seems to be getting more common.

 

Last weeks we had rain almost every day here and flooding in some parts of the country. But we had some fine days
earlier , luckaly the ac is very cheap to run so we use it when it,s 75F and hotter. Our house has sun the whole day.
Must be terrible with 110/115 F , we are not used to this temp here.

 

3 days in a row, huh? It could be worse (these are real temperatures, not heat index).




Yep, welcome to my world.

 

I remember those days from when I lived in Scotland. It only nudged 75-80 degrees for about 2 weeks in August. If it was 80 for 3 days in a row, the Scots were screaming "Heatwave". But having summer days with the sun shining from 3:30am-10:30pm was nice.

I'm sorry to say that I never made it to Sweden though. Been to Trodheim, Norway. But that was as close as I got.

 

I was waiting for you to pipe up about my ranting about the heat. Not that I like heat (because I don't), but I'll take your 105-110 air temperature any day over the 100+ with 72% humidity. The air is so thick, you feel like you're in a sauna.

 

This is work in the basement weather.

 

Beat me to it!

I spent a few days in Kingman Arizona on vacation a few years ago. It was 114 degrees. While the sun is hot, I was fairly comfortable.

We spent a week in the Badlands/Deadwood area last summer on vacation. It was 110 degrees….with 20% humidity. It felt like 75-80 here.

I work in a hot noisy factory. My wife works in a quiet air conditioned office. Whenever we go out to eat, she always suggests sitting outside in the outdoor seating area because “the fresh air is nice!!” No thanks. Park me under a A/C vent.

 

I grew up in SW Louisiana, so I know what heat and humidity are like. I visited family there last month, and while there worked at my Mom's house and my mother in law's house. It was in the mid-90s with high humidity, so I got soaking wet while working outside. With that said, at no time did I ever feel that it was "hot" - sweaty and warm, yes, but not actually hot. As I said to many people there many times, 95 is 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix. I was able to work outside for around 8 hours one day and didn't pass out or get heat stroke.

But I agree, heat is not fun, especially when you have a convertible that you enjoy driving. I just park mine for the 5 months of brutal summer and enjoy driving the other 7 months of the year.

 

Yup...it's hot here in SE VA, but heat be damned, I still take my '72 Supreme out every chance I get. It's not too bad with both windows down and cruisin the highway at 70. I actually get a good breeze and with the car being white, it helps.