When it is just too hot and you must be out anyway, due to cabin fever or whatever, what are your favorite oases of air-conditioning?

It doesn't get smokin' hot up here by your standards -- not more than 36*C -- but that's too darn hot for me.

I have a massive old spruce tree in the middle of the yard. We toss the picnic table under it and it's an oasis. It's well shaded, the ground is cooler, the evaporation from the tree no doubt helps, and the slightest breeze comes whistling under. Wonderful.

I also have an old hip-roof barn, the classic style; and with the big airy hayloft above, the concrete main floor stays nice and cool. I'm actually trenching in water and telephone this year (my wireless Internet reaches out that far). It'll be my summer office/workshop. Complete with a beer fridge.

(BTW, this'll make you laugh: We went to Hawaii a bunch of years ago in the summer. The heat and humidity just about killed me; it took ten days before I started to acclimatize. But the kicker is that a good portion of the tourists were from California, and they had come to escape the heat!)

Your last name say's it all-Go West young man, to The Great Pacific Ocean!

Locally or on the road it is Barnes & Noble, any fast food restaurant, and one of the movie multi-plexes. All keep it cool and most have backup generators.

Regionally it is either the Pacific Ocean or the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Temporally, it is night rather than day.

The neighborhood pool. No air conditioning but wonderfully cooling...and very nice scenery.

-Blast

If I can't get to the forest, our neighborhood pool and the local movie theatre are my two top choices. I was pregnant during a heat wave in the summer of 2003 and couldn't stand it anymore. DH and I took the afternoon off and went to the movies. We watched three movies back to back.

BTW - I don't recommend something like Terminator 3 for pregnant women but my water broke during the big damn scene in X-Men 2. Might have had something to do with all the jalapeno smoothered natchos.

How about in the field?

In the shade of large rocks, trees, or bushes, especially near flowing water or on the downwind side of still water.

on a hot day, soaking my head under a garden hose - anyone's.

some people never grow up. but it sure feels good.

There's nothing like taking off the boots at dipping your feet in a cold mountain burn on hot sunny day.

Off-shore on the west coast on my boat, fishing salmon, halibut and checking crab traps.