Staying cool as summer heats up

The last week I've been trying to spend as much time in the river as possible in order to cool down as temperatures in Sanders County soar well above 90, but a girl can't spend all day in the river.

The last week I've been trying to spend as much time in the river as possible in order to cool down as temperatures in Sanders County soar well above 90, but a girl can't spend all day in the river. Although swimming helps to cool me down for a while, the second I am back in my non-air conditioned apartment, I immediately begin to heat up and sit uncomfortably on my couch.

Being frugal and sun burnt is a terrible combination when it comes to keeping cool so I have started trying out an abundance of different strategies and tactics to keep cool until the sun goes down and the mountain air can cool my apartment a bit.

If you're like me and enjoy that summer glow to your skin and inevitably come home with some red patches, all natural aloe vera gel is extremely cooling. Even if you're not sunburnt aloe vera is a great way to cool down your skin while adding a little moisture.

When the days first reached 90 degrees outside, I went straight to the store to buy a bag of popsicles in order to keep cool.

The popsicles, however, melted faster than I could eat them as I swear my apartment was 150 degrees and I had to switch over to a less sugary alternative and began eating cup after cup of ice.

The icy drink solution to cooling down is merely a temporary one. It seems I sweat out more than I would drink just walking to the refrigerator to get more ice.

I needed to come up with a way to cool my body down. I tried the standard cold wash clothe on my face, but this only made me feel like I had the flu and I started to feel uncomfortable because who wants to have the flu in the summer?

I then turned to taking an extremely hot shower, followed by an extremely icy one. And I'm not talking about just putting on the cold water for a bit, I'm talking stand under the freezing cold water for at least five minutes. This effect lasted for hours. After a long day of being hot, this kept me cool until the sun went down.

Physically cooling down wasn't enough for me because all I could think about was how hot I might get should I move away from the fan and I decided I needed to cool down mentally.

I listened to Christmas songs, "Let it Snow," or "White Christmas" for as long as I could bare listening to them on repeat.

Eventually, I got the courage to move from my sweltering den of an apartment and I moved to my car. I took a nice air-conditioned drive, making my destination the local video store at the Conoco in Plains. Here I rented movies with everything snow from Snow Dogs to Happy Feat or Ice Age, all great for both young and old and to get that cool thinking going.

One final point to keeping cool should these above suggestions prove insufficient is to just embrace the hot.

Ever since grade school, I was always taught to never fan myself in order to cool down because the more movement you do the hotter you will be in the end.

Although I agree with this adage, now that it's swelteringly hot, I think we should all just embrace the heat. Go for a walk or a jog and just sweat it out.

That cooling shower will be even better once you've simply embraced the heat. Just be sure to drink plenty of water.

If you have keep-cool tips please e-mail Danielle at reporter@vp-mi.com.