When the AC goes out in the van on a July road trip

Another fun family bonding experience

We’re screaming along I-435 north of Kansas City in our Ford Transit, the full leafy green trees we’re passing looking cool and unbothered under the sweltering sun. Inside, our ten seats hold sweating souls. The way back is packed to the gills with roller backpacks filled with assortments of dirty and crumpled or clean and folded clothes, plastic bins with granola bars and crackers and bike helmets and other necessities.¹ “Screaming” is an apt term, because the roar from the rolled-down windows is basically deafening. And the reason the windows are rolled down?

Because the air conditioning went out in the van at the end of Day 2 of our cross-country road trip.

That’s right.

In 2024, our inner vehicle life has been felt like we’re driving in the summer of 1984.² Sticky, that lackadaisical ennui, and just plain hot.

In 90+ degree days, through hazy Midwestern humidity and furious coastal downpours, we’ve been cruising at mostly highway speeds with the suffocating reality of summer temperatures around us. Little or no cool or cold relief. Lots of ear-thrumming noise, the roar of the road around us. Many, many hours of slowly melting into the slightly coarse fabric seats, feeling the constant perspiration brought upon by unrelenting heat.

We weren’t altogether unprepared for this. We’ve had seven years of the AC being on the fritz. Right after we bought the van, and Jon was literally driving it home from the dealer, the AC stopped working. No problem; we had a warranty! Except that when we took it into the dealership and left it for a week and they took apart the whole dash, the parts that needed fixing weren’t covered, and they told us it would cost $3000 to fix. Since we’d just bought a new-to-us van, and since we live in Wyoming where the summer temps can swing forty degrees or more in one day, we chose not to fork over the dough to make it right. We could live with the finicky AC.

And live with it we did. Over the years, we’ve learned to live with AC that will stop after being run for several hours. That will sometimes spit ice at us through the vents. That would, until a few weeks ago, start cooling us again after a stop or an overnight parking break. “Atta girl!” I’d say when the fans would start whooshing the cold toward us.

Our BMW has been good for us. That’s the ironic name our friend RW gave to it shortly after we got it. It stands for “Big Mormon Wagon.” This confessional Lutheran family appreciates the name for several reasons. And despite our profession of Christian belief, we’ve struggled to be kind to each other while we’ve been baking inside our van’s white sides. The tinted windows help a lot, but there’s only so much you can do with those, necklace fans (thanks, Buc-ee’s!), and regular rehydration with cold water.

We’ve yelled a lot. Okay, a lot of that is due to the sheer volume in here. But it’s been hard for us to be charitable and kind when we feel like gloopy popsicles, all sticky and gross and definitely past our primes.

Nevertheless, God has been gracious, as usual. Since we’d recently had the van serviced, it’s been running beautifully, and the new tires have provided much-needed traction. I’d pick no AC anytime over a broken-down van by the side of the road. We’ve had many times of rocking out to music we all enjoy.³ And we’ve actually cooled off a few times, too. In South Carolina, during a low country rain, almost within sight of the ocean we’d come so far to see, passing cars hit huge puddles outside my window as we sat in a left turn lane. The front seat looked like we were standing astern and just listed into a large Caribbean wave on board the Hispaniola. I screamed like—well, like I’d been hit by an unexpected wall of water. Then, as I tried to get the window up, another car went by. “I’m turning now!” Jon said, soaked with me again by another wave, as the kids screeched from the back. Even though Jon and I looked like drowned rats, we couldn’t stop laughing. That’s in part why the kids couldn’t stop laughing.

And just now, we had a rest area stop in the eastern Nebraska rain. We all had to run for it, and everyone agreed the wet and the breeze were glorious. Smiling and semi-soaked and panting a little after our short sprints, we looked at each other with grins.

“That was fun!” said more than one person.

And then we strapped in, rolled down the windows again, and headed back out to the highway.

1. Some people would say bike helmets are not necessary. Some of those people are in our van at this very moment. Chalk the helmets’ inclusion up to a mom trying to be somewhat conscientious about safety and not conscientious about space considerations.

2. I have a vivid memory of my early childhood in the mid-1980s, sitting in the backseat of my dad’s yellow Toyota, the sun pouring relentlessly golden and sauna-like through the windows, as I sat dripping in the Kentucky heat. Because the car didn’t have any air conditioning at all. This is one of the many memories that are starting to make me feel slightly old.

3. The Bee Gees. George Straight. “Raider’s March” (the three-year-old’s favorite). Songs from The Music Man. “Carolina in my mind.” Plus many other random things.