Hammocks!

I *promise* that Darrell is almost finished editing our Europe pictures, including some that prove we knocked a few more items off our "101 in 1001" list. But there was one item we knocked off even before we left (the night before, in fact!): hanging the hammocks in the basement!

Now, you may be asking yourself, why, on the eve of our ten-day vacation, did we decide it would be a good idea to tackle hanging the hammocks in the basement (and--in the process--stay up way later than necessary)? Well, the answer is quite simple: stubbornness. You see, in the days prior to our departure, South Dakota was experiencing an unseasonably warm May. Daytime temperatures were pushing ninety, and lows were holding in the sixties. Great for being outside; not great for keeping our house cool. In fact, as we were preparing for bed on the eve of our departure, our house was a balmy seventy-six degrees--far too hot to comfortably sleep in. Now, we easily could have turned on our air conditioner and called it good, but we refused. For starters, we try to avoid using our air conditioner at all costs during the month of May (just like we try to avoid turning on the heat until November). Secondly, we were going to be leaving the next day, and didn't really see the necessity in spending the money to cool the house down. Besides, as is the case in most houses, our basement was significantly cooler, so sleeping down there was a legitimate option. Now, we had our choice of quite a few options: we could have blown up our air mattress, we could have re-lived our college days and gotten cozy on the twin mattress we have down there, or we could have pulled out our camping pads and sleeping bags and slept in those on the floor. But for whatever reason, Darrell was set on sleeping in his hammock (which--for the record--he did nearly every night one summer as a camp counselor). Now, I've been (politely) trying to get Darrell to hang the hammocks since last summer, so now that he finally had his mind set on doing it, I wasn't going to talk him out of it.

Securing one end of the hammock was easy since we have exposed support beams running through the middle of our basement, but the difficulty was in finding a place to tie the other end of the hammock. The only other easily accessible options that would allow us to wrap a string around them were our furnace, hot water heater, and a myriad of pipes--none of which were good ideas. Darrell attempted screwing a heavy-duty hook into a two-by-four that frames our staircase (the only basement wall that isn't insulated and plastic-covered), but found that with his body weight the hook was inclined to bend. It appeared that sleeping in the hammocks was not going to be happening that night, and as it was already quite late, I headed upstairs, convinced that I could manage one night in a stifling hot room. Not but ten minutes later, I heard the drill going in the basement, and went down to find this:

I'm sure it isn't recommended to drill holes into the two-by-fours in your house (at least it isn't a load-bearing wall), but it was certainly an effective solution. Five minutes later, we were comfortable and cool, ready for a good night's sleep.

They definitely make getting to the washer and dryer a little more difficult, but I'm seriously looking forward to spending some warm summer afternoons down there with a book. Next step--get large enough trees so that we can hang them outside!