Sheridan Lake

We live in a beautiful, well built house. We bought it sight unseen before we moved here. Ok. We did see 5 pictures on the internet, but we consider that sight unseen. God was good to let us have it. There have only been 3 owners since it was built in 1961. The original owner built our house with quality materials. He really did a great job.

Two caveats of a house built in 1961. 1) One car garage. Which was huge back then but not so much now. 2) No central air conditioning.

Most homes in this area that are older just don't have central air. It was the same when we lived in Minneapolis. This far north, the people are a hardy sort and are just plain giddy when the snow melts. So central air has become standard in the newer houses, but not in homes like ours.

In the past, we did get an estimate to add central air. With a quad level house, it's just plain expensive. So we bought some nice, new window units. They do fine the two months that we need them. I am exaggerating. It's really almost three.

We, in our frugality, don't usually put them in until the thermostat hits above 85 on a regular basis. Like every day. We still hadn't put them in this morning. Even though we knew the temps would be in the high 90s, because after the next day, we would fall back to the 70s and 80s.

Side story: One day a few years ago the thermostat hit 104 and we didn't have the air in. (It was late May/early June. We've had blizzards in the same time period.) I happened to call a credit card company, which I found out later was in Arizona. They had hit 112 that day and had been in the 100s for a week or more. I had no more room to complain.

Anyway, today we planned a surprise for our girls. Mostly so we could get out of the house. We went to Sheridan Lake for the first time. It is a beautiful lake about an hour from our house. We got there at 10:30 and stayed until about 1:30. This picture was taken in the morning. Imagine about 200 more people on this little beach and that's what it looked like after lunch.

Headed to Armadillo's in Rapid City,

then made our way home.

We had a great time, and thought we might beat the heat when we got back to the house. We mistimed it slightly.

Yes. These are the thermostats INSIDE our house. Taken about 5 minutes apart. Around 3:30 pm. We have since put ONE air conditioner in. It has cooled us down to 89. We are considering a change in strategy from now on.

For those of you concerned for our well-being. All two of you. We did chicken out and head to the church for an impromptu "movie night." Central air has never felt so good.