Greg Bikes the Desert and a New Way to Shower

Friday, February 15, 2013

We have been without WIFI for some time now. I will have a lot of posts to put up on the blog when we finally get connected. We had brief phone service on one phone as we drove through Furnace Creek. We decided to spend another night at Mesquite Spring because Greg was anxious to get on his bike. I was ready for a slow day of puttering.

This morning the wind was blowing fairly strong, but Greg decided to brave it. He rode out past Scotty's Castle to the Nevada state line and back. Eleven grueling miles up hill with a headwind. I told him, better him than me! I straightened up and looked at maps and guides to decide where to go next. We had planned to go to the Mojave Desert Preserve south of here and then to Joshua Tree National Park and over to LA to visit friends. We decided after 5 weeks in the desert we are about “deserted” out for now and think we will head over to the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We need to be back in Maryland for the last week in March. After that we will probably spend a month in the southeast before heading for Atlantic Canada for the summer. But, our plans could change again. We don't know where we are heading tomorrow. We'll just get in our seats and start driving!

After Greg got back from his bike ride, we decided we were desperate for showers. Lots of hiking and biking, dry, dusty winds, and no showers in the campgrounds and we were feeling pretty yucky! There are paid showers at the private resorts at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells, but we are very far from them. Greg had a discussion with Dennis about how they handle their RV showers, so we decided to give it a try for the first time. When the RV is hooked up to water, it is like a house. Turn on the faucet and get a continuous flow of water. When we can't get hooked up to water, as in all the national park campgrounds in Death Valley, we have to pull up to the campground water connection, fill our 27 gallon tank and go park at our site. We turn on our water pump to circulate the water, and when we use it all up, we have to drive back to the faucet and fill up again. In the meantime, the water we use is going into either a black water tank for the toilet and bathroom sink, and the shower, or the grey water tank for the kitchen sink. When these are full they have to be dumped out at the campground dump, if we are not in a park with hookups at our site. So, here is our dilemma. Could we get two showers from our water tank, and would we still have enough water to last until we leave tomorrow without driving to the faucet and filling up again. Every time we drive, we have to make sure everything in the camper is stowed away so nothing flies around as we drive.

Also, our shower is the storage closet. The previous owner put in two removable shelves. Currently it is full of towels and toiletries and surplus paper products. The floor of the shower contains the laundry basket full of dirty clothes, cleaning products, distilled water for the batteries, and our beer and wine supply. So the first order of business was to clear out the shower! That meant finding room elsewhere in our small RV. Then we had to figure out how things worked. There is a detachable shower sprayer mounted on the side wall, and a sliding door. The sky light is just tall enough for Greg to stand up in the shower and if you don't flail about too much you can shower without knocking a hole in the door. In other words, it is a bit like showering in a coffin. We were obviously getting desperate for a shower!

We drove over to the faucet and filled up our water tank and dumped the other tanks. We drove back to the site. We are on a slightly uneven surface, so we had to spend time putting the leveling blocks under the RV again. Greg showered first. There is an on-off switch on the shower head, so you wet down, switch it off, lather up, switch it on and rinse. Then wash your hair the same way. Greg did fine, and was happy to be clean. I got in and had a scalding trickle! I complained, (poor Greg!) until I finally got a reasonable temperature and water pressure. Yay!!! Finally clean. I can't tell you how great it felt to get the desert grime off. We checked the tanks and had used less than a half tank of water, so we felt we had enough water to last until we leave tomorrow, then we'll fill it up again. We barely put a dent in the black water tank.

I had one last chore to perform. It has been three months since I had a haircut and my hair was driving me crazy! I have 5 more weeks until my next appointment at home, so I got out the hair cutting scissors I use for Greg and cut an inch off my hair. (Sorry, Mary!)

After the showers we had to dry it out and repack everything back in the shower stall. By that time it was 4 pm and we had missed lunch, so I cooked an early supper. Two more episodes of Battlestar and Greg was falling asleep after his tough bike ride today. He went to bed at 7:15! I stayed up to catch up on these postings. My eyes are starting to droop too, as I write this on the computer with the help of an oil lamp and a head lamp. The wind is picking up outside, and the crescent moon is getting lower in the sky. Time for bed! We'll see what tomorrow brings!