Today I went to the beach, parked where I was facing the ocean (and the sunlight), and broke out of my strict-stealth mode, by opening the door to the cab. The whole van was flooded with natural light, for the first time in a year or so. And it heated up in here almost immediately, going from maybe 50 degrees to a comfortable 65 or more. The cab greenhouse is indeed an excellent solar heater. Interior of refrigerator remains at 35 degrees, batteries are at 14.4V.
Just joyful and wonderful. I took pictures and have posted them on the vandweller's Yahoo group, here. Looking at the pictures, I felt particularly good about the work I've done, and how comfortable I've made this home-- that I built, myself, with my own two hands (and a couple hands worth of help from friends).
Speaking of friends... sitting in a friend's Westphalia/Vanagon some months ago, I noticed that, due to the darkness of the interior, even though he had tons of windows everywhere, people still couldn't really see us inside the van from the outside. Maybe a shadow, a bit of motion, but not nearly as clearly as we saw out. It was more of a one-way-mirror kind of thing. So, I'm warming up (literally) to the idea of windows.
Maybe I'll spend a bit more time this winter (but never in summer!) with my door open, letting the warmth and sunlight in. It is so much more pleasant.
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