Getting through back-to-back winter storms in Texas?!?!

Down here in Texas we've received about 7 inches of snow and ice over the past seven days. We've seen lows in the single digits and wind chills of down to -15 degrees. How did we make it through and what have we been up to?

Before (55 degrees, sunny) After storm 1(20 degrees, sunny, 5 inches of snow and ice)

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Managing cold:

We had lots of family checking in on us this week. It's true that lots of people were without electricity and water, were cold in their homes, and some even lost their lives in this latest snow storm. We had no problems during the storms. We have a small ceramic buddy heater that was kicking in high gear all week. It kept the internal van temperature between 68 and 74 degrees all week. The highest internal temperature we got to was 90 degrees! The lowest temperature we hit inside was 55 degrees and that was at night with the heater turned way down on the lowest setting. We keep our heater on the floor when we're in the van so it heats the floor, the least insulated part of the van, and warms everything above.

We have been having issues with our van battery dying lately, so we took extra precautions to keep the battery in good condition during this cold weather. We ran the van every other day for about an hour. Half of that time (30 minutes each time we ran the van) we put the heat on low on the dashboard and the feet to melt the snow and ice off the floor and the windshield. This was a cold and moisture-control solution. However, it was a sustainability ethics debate because we were running a vehicle and not moving it. We took that non-sustainable action in order to keep our van in good condition (and to ensure that I could leave the park in the case of an emergency when Adam was at work).

Managing snow and ice:

While the shore was frozen because of moisture off the lake, we were largely thawed!

Snow became one of those vanlife weather nuisances, just like rain. We took the following steps to make sure the van was as dry as possible on the inside:

1. Shoes off in the front seats. We kept our shoes on the floor of the front seats so when they melted, the water was kept contained and away from our wood panels.

2. Hats, buffs/scarves, and gloves off in the front seats. We also took off our additional snow gear in the front because they were often covered in snow and ice as well.

3. Keep the side door closed (except for one picture). This one was super important during the snow. Sometimes it's so easy to just pop the side door open to get in and out. Especially when you have a backpack on or are carrying something in your arms, the extra room and not having to climb over the front seats is nice. But we decided to keep the side door closed and only use the front to prevent snow and cold from coming in the van.

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Did we have ANY problems?

The only problem we ran into was losing water on Tuesday night (day 4 of the 7 days since the storm). We dripped our outdoor faucet, but because our van water system does not require any connections to a water source or any heater, our faucet froze on us four days in. Fortunately, it was only frozen for two days and it naturally unthawed when the sun came out and we got above freezing. Fortunately, we have a bathroom a few sites away that has internal heat. That meant we weren't really without water, we just had to walk a little bit to get our water. We took our water bottles to and from the bathroom a few times a day. Madi also had filled up our sink and our extra 5-gallon water jug the few days before in preparation for the winter weather.

All in all, we were pretty prepared for the storm. The only thing we wished we had done before the weather hit was fill the van up with gas. We weren't on a full tank when the storm started, but Madi didn't have time to unhook the van, prep for moving, go get gas, and get back to the park between my work and schoolwork and before the snow came. We didn't have issues with gas, but it would have been a smart move to fill up before the cold.

Did we have ANY fun?

We're not going to lie, vanlife in the cold isn't the most fun. It's similar to vanlife in any extreme weather, sitting inside your 50-square foot home 24/7 is going to drive you a little crazy. But, being from the Midwest, we could handle the cold temperatures enough to go outside and walk. Acadia learned to love the snow and would frequently bite at the road to get ice to chomp on. She had a lot of fun! We didn't build any snow people or have a snowball fight - this snow was too heavy and icy to be good for molding. We did read and play a lot of games. We enjoyed our short winter, but we're excited to get back to the 50s and sunny weather!