New Adventures with The Seasons in the Desert.

Okay, we read the weather report while we were still in San Diego. Yes, it was cool for San Diego--70s. Pleasant, of course. And it was supposed to be 71 in Jacumba on Thursday morning. Now, we had seen weather reports of 85 in Jacumba; my husband laughing, "Yeah, right!" when it felt like 95+ in the sun.

When we drove out on Wednesday night and opened the car window, we were both shocked at how cold it was. Not cool. Cold! It was probably 50 and windy. And when it's windy in the desert, it's colder. Anyway, no lovely sitting outside sharing enjoyment of the stars, the lovely coolish air. No, we were shivering inside, eating our snack prepared by my lovely husband, snuggled in bed, watching a dumb movie. We had never had the heater on inside the trailer and besides, we had a cozy comforter on the bed, so we were nice and snuggly warm--while under the covers.

The next morning, it was really cold! 48 degrees inside. Overcast outside. No sun that day! Jack started figuring out the heater. He was able to get it on, but it didn't appear to have warm air coming out of the vents that used to have air conditioning coming out. We called the air conditioning repair man who had come out here in July to fix our air conditioner. The heater is fueled by propane tanks and the hot air vents were the ones we had covered with cardboard to keep the flies out because we could see daylight when we looked into the vent. Jack went under the trailer to see what the problem was. There was a gaping hole, chewed open by some animal, probably a rat in the piping which was like dryer exhaust. He duct-taped it up and--voila--all the warm air came inside as it was supposed to. What did the world do before duct tape?

Then he turned on the hot water heater. we hadn't needed it before because when it was hot here, the water was warmed by the sun enought to take quick showers and wash dishes. But now, with the cold weather upon us, the water out of the faucet was c.o.l.d!

I expect it will warm up again before it really stays cold by November. At least we had a plan-ahead adventure before it got too severe. Didn't see much of Stars and Stripes this weekend. I guess it's too cold for lizards and the lack of flies was wonderful!