A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

This is a camp shower, such as is sold for under $15 at WalMart. Similar showers are sold in various places for similar amounts of monry.

My son bought me one of these for Christmas several years ago. I brought it with me on every camping trip afterwards but somehow never actually used. When Keith and I were packing for Maui, because of its low price we decided to replace it, rather than bring it. (Shipping to Hawai'i, for most things, costs more than replacing them.)

So, weeks ago, I picked one up from WalMart and brought it home, and Keith and I began to actually read the directions, rather than simply assuming it would just work. See on the label where it says the shower bag holds five gallons? Let's think about that a moment. You know those big water cooler bottles? They hold five gallons. Do you know how heavy five gallons of water is?

Now, imagine trying to hoist this big heavy bag onto—I dunno, maybe a tree limb, or an old abandoned gallows. Every day you want a shower. If the sun is out.

So, we never actually opened the box. With the coronavirus, stores won't take returns so I guess we're stuck with it.

Then there's this device, which Zach purchased but I don't think ever used/ It's a small pump and propane water heater, with a shower head attached to the output. I brought this down to use, but it turned out one of the electric cables had a broken connector. I have no way down here to fix it; so I put the device in the Solar Shed along with the Camp Shower Bag.

Here's the Standing Solar Shower that Zach bought and actually set up before he left. We used it up at Zach's container, where there is water pressure, several times. But the cows knocked it down (and destroyed its floor mount), as well as the bamboo screen we used to prevent cars driving by to see more scenery than they had bargained for.

Besides, now we have running water at our cabin; so it makes more sense to bring it down and set it up there.

Here's how the unit works: There's a garden hose connector in the back at the base. That's where the water goes in. When you first turn on the water, you hear whooshing inside but no water comes out for several minutes. It is at this time the shower's reservoir is filled.

In our case, if it's a sunny day, the water is in fact already hot, and there will be no cold water. But with normal use, the water goes in cold and is heated by the black plastic that makes up the column. After several hours in the sun, this water will be hot when you again run the shower. (The reservoir never empties, so the lengthy first time usage only happens the one time.) Since the base of the shower was broken by cows, I used a couple of bungee cords to keep it upright.

Now, all that happened in days past. Today, Keith and I got the cowboy tub into the back of Zach's truck and ferried it down to our cabin. Since it was a sunny day I knew the water would be hot—but would the hot water last long enough to fill the tub with soaking goodness? With plenty of water pressure, it wouldn't take long to find out!

And, as I had hoped, the tub could be filled before the hot water in the pipe ran out.

(Keith did join me, but we got no photos of that!)

I also trimmed my beard. I had planned to let it grow until the crisis was over; but it was just bothering me too much. And I do think it looks better with the dyed ends cut off.

They have opened a few smaller beaches and, I'm sure, we'll make a beach run one day soon. But, meanwhile, it's nice to know we have our own hot tub to use whenever we want!