In the middle of a July rainstorm, one man got the ice cream vendors' attention by mouthing his request through the rolled-up window of his car.

"He's like, 'I don't care what you give me, I just want some kind of ice cream cone,'" Stevens said.

As the mercury inches higher on the thermometer and locals search for relief from the summer temperatures, frosty and sugary treats are at the height of demand.

With their ice cream stand on wheels, Coppersmith and Stevens are two Hanover women in the business of meeting it.

On this particular day in July, the two head out in the late morning toward McSherrystown, one of several routes they've developed. Their first stop is a summer-camp program for kids. 

Slowly, Coppersmith turns into the driveway. She steers with her left hand and rings a setof bells with her right. From the truck's sound system blares a cassette tape of children's songs that date back to the childhoods of Coppersmith's now-adult children.

No one's appeared yet, but Coppersmith knows what's going on inside "They hear me coming," she says.

Within a minute, 15 kids are lined up. Coppersmith has yet to park the truck. Mother and daughter spend the next 20 minutes taking orders from kids with quarters and scooping ice from an antique-looking snowball maker into Styrofoam cups. "It makes the old-fashioned snowballs, and that's what I like," Coppersmith said.

Coppersmith said she heard about a 1974 snowball truck for sale and "made a decision in two days" to purchase it.

She and her boyfriend redid "everything" to make the truck look and operate like new. Just recently, she quit her management job at a local restaurant to make snowballs full time. "It's very scary, but I'm glad I took the chance," she said.

It might seem like a bad time to start a business that runs on wheels, but Coppersmith said rising gas prices have an added benefit. People don't want to run unnecessary errands nowadays, so they're happy when the ice cream comes to them, she said.

"If anything, it's helping my customers because they don't have to get in the car," Coppersmith said.

Coppersmith said she'll be selling ice cream at upcoming community events and is available for private functions by reservation. And she opened a stand near Little's Family Restaurant on Baltimore Pike recently.

The truck runs six days a week, and Coppersmith said she expects to be out selling ice cream through October.

It might be old-fashioned, but Coppersmith said she expects the tradition of ice cream trucks to endure through the generations.

"I don't think this trend is ever going to stop," she said.