Our foam mattress in our trailer is
not Tempur-pedic, it's just regular old foam.....but very dense. We have
been using if for many years, but then we don't go to very many rides,
either.
You can get the foam mattresses or even just a 3-4" roll of the stuff on
Ebay - got one myself recently and LOVE it. Now have one for on top of
my bed at home and one to put on my cot in the trailer, too. It's the
same stuff they use in Tempurpedic mattresses that are way out there in
cost.
It's called convection. The air is headed next the the warm
body and this sets up a current as the warm moves away and the to be
replaced by cold air which draws away more heat.
However, air is one
of the most effective insulators known if it is contained in many small
pockets. This is how down, thinslate, closed cell foam, fiberglass and
styrofoam work. The capture of air in many small pockets keeps the
currents from being established and hence keep the warm air next to the warm
body. An air mattress will remove heat from the body very rapidly. The best
insulation to sleep on is closed cell foam ( open cell foam air mattresses
such as "Thermorest"). I've sleep in a snow cave on a closed cell foam pad
and have been quite toasty. Both are available at places like REI.
I've always heard that the layer of air in an air
mattress just conducts the cold from the ground right up to you. My
husband and I found this to be true at a Dec. ride several years ago...we
were absolutely miserable in our tent and air mattress (about 5-6" thick
mattress). We luckily had a little propane heater, which we had to
replace the canister on every 3-4 hours or so. We spent 3 nights in
that tent. Up side is, the next weekend my husband said "Let's go
trailer shopping!", and 10 days later we had our LQ trailer! I'd
have dragged him to a cold ride a long time before that if I'd known that
was all it took to get a LQ trailer! <VBG>
Dawn in East
Texas
--
We imitate our
masters only because we are not yet masters ourselves, and only
because in doing so
we learn the truth about what cannot be imitated.
