We interrupt this story of embarrassing foolishness, and will leave the reader hanging in suspense about whether Ol' Boonie gets off the mountain in one piece. But we'll get back to it next time.
Newbies to the RV blogosphere might be unaware how much silly nonsense they are about to encounter. Most of it is harmless as long as they take it with a grain of salt. Much of it is due to "boondockers", since RV park "campers" are so middle class/suburban/boring that they seldom blog. The blarniest of the blarney-ers are probably van campers, or worse yet, stealth van campers.
The last thing the RV blogosphere needs is one more smelly fool bragging about how he hasn't paid to camp for years because he camps for free (next to railroad tracks) in cities or on public land. Or how he sleeps in the trunk of his Toyota Corolla, together with a week's supply of his own poopies in double garbage bags, and washes himself with Baby-Wipes by "rubbing a little bit here and a little bit there." (And he probably uses the soft and conformable poop-filled garbage bags as a pillow.)
Washing just about anything is pretty much the same. It is a chemo-mechanical process, involving a wet, soapy wash rag, followed by repetitive iterations of oscillatory motion and pressure, followed by hydro-surfacto-expurgation, or in layman's terms, rinsing off with clean water. Most of the water gets consumed by the rinsing process, not by the so-called "washing."
Nothing could be sillier than pretending to clean yourself by merely redistributing the crud from one place on the body to another place on the body. In other words, the process of cleaning yourself (or anything else in the world) is about excrudescence rather than recrudescence.
For doubters, notice the daily excrudescence resulting from a two hour mountain bike ride, without blowing dust, and without crisco-ing up in sunscreen or bug goop:
Good grief, it looks like something you'd drain out of an old automobile engine or its radiator. I rest my case. Notice how this navy shower only used 0.7 gallons.
So what is it about van campers or weekend campers that causes them to underestimate the hygienic and salubrious effects of a navy shower? Is it perhaps that they just sit around in their rigs most of the time, and have no positive sense of what the Good Life Outdoors consists of? It consists of walking, observing, bicycling, fly fishing, doggie sports, rock-hounding, horse riding, etc. It doesn't consist of sitting in the van and watching satellite television all day, while boasting about how cheap they are. The latter is the only lifestyle that lends itself to cleaning up with baby wipes.
Newbies to the RV blogosphere might be unaware how much silly nonsense they are about to encounter. Most of it is harmless as long as they take it with a grain of salt. Much of it is due to "boondockers", since RV park "campers" are so middle class/suburban/boring that they seldom blog. The blarniest of the blarney-ers are probably van campers, or worse yet, stealth van campers.
The last thing the RV blogosphere needs is one more smelly fool bragging about how he hasn't paid to camp for years because he camps for free (next to railroad tracks) in cities or on public land. Or how he sleeps in the trunk of his Toyota Corolla, together with a week's supply of his own poopies in double garbage bags, and washes himself with Baby-Wipes by "rubbing a little bit here and a little bit there." (And he probably uses the soft and conformable poop-filled garbage bags as a pillow.)
Washing just about anything is pretty much the same. It is a chemo-mechanical process, involving a wet, soapy wash rag, followed by repetitive iterations of oscillatory motion and pressure, followed by hydro-surfacto-expurgation, or in layman's terms, rinsing off with clean water. Most of the water gets consumed by the rinsing process, not by the so-called "washing."
Nothing could be sillier than pretending to clean yourself by merely redistributing the crud from one place on the body to another place on the body. In other words, the process of cleaning yourself (or anything else in the world) is about excrudescence rather than recrudescence.
For doubters, notice the daily excrudescence resulting from a two hour mountain bike ride, without blowing dust, and without crisco-ing up in sunscreen or bug goop:
Good grief, it looks like something you'd drain out of an old automobile engine or its radiator. I rest my case. Notice how this navy shower only used 0.7 gallons.
So what is it about van campers or weekend campers that causes them to underestimate the hygienic and salubrious effects of a navy shower? Is it perhaps that they just sit around in their rigs most of the time, and have no positive sense of what the Good Life Outdoors consists of? It consists of walking, observing, bicycling, fly fishing, doggie sports, rock-hounding, horse riding, etc. It doesn't consist of sitting in the van and watching satellite television all day, while boasting about how cheap they are. The latter is the only lifestyle that lends itself to cleaning up with baby wipes.
Comments
As for using baby wipes and such, who wants to wipe dirt all over your body with a chemical wipe? Have never liked such things. Nothing beats good old water.
And I guess I'm now among the "blarniest of the blarney-ers" as I'm going to be a stealth van camper as of tomorrow. :)
Gayle
It's a small pill and when exposed to air it will absorb water.
By the way, you should post more frequently on your well-written blog.
Then I pour the hot water into an empty small reservoir hooked to the water pump. (The stock 25 gallon water tank was eliminated years ago.)
Then I go to the shower, which uses a pistol grip sprayer like you would screw onto a garden hose. You drain all the cold water out of the plumbing, saving it in a pan. The water now comes out at the perfect, hot temperature. No adjusting, no waste. The spring on the pistol grip sprayer causes you to release it, shutting off the water, whenever your hands need to work the wash rag. Thus you use very little water and it takes no self-discipline.