When we are camping, we love to be away from the crowds. On our own, minding our own business and sometimes being downright lazy. So when it comes to the question of when and how to do our dirty laundry, we always seem to manage to put the occasion off until 'another day'. So, after being on the road for some years now, we have come to learn that the business of leaving our campsite and finding a good laundromat quite a distance from where we would be camping can become quite tiresome.
This is why I decided on our last camping foray, that we would not be doing any more driving into town to search out a laundry facility where we would sit for hours and spend a fair amount of money to get our clothes clean. Instead, we would try washing our own clothes at the campsite, using whatever means are available to us. The two main criteria for this exercise came down to firstly, finding the correct source of water but not using our fresh water supply in our 100 gallon water tanks, and secondly, not putting any of the dirty water into the grey tanks. I managed to achieve this in two ways. One was to use the water faucet in the Wildlife Management Areas we were camped in, where we usually managed to stay in the horse camping areas because there was always a water facility available for the horses. Our second option was to camp close to a clean river, where we could gather ample water into our buckets and bring them to the campsite to proceed with the washing process. Once enough water was gathered, I then had to figure out a way to get a good wash and rinse, using the few buckets I had available. The result was that I had one bucket for the first wash, filled three quarters of the way with clean water and the other three buckets were used for different stages of rinsing. If you watch the Youtube video I posted, it might be clearer to show how I achieved a good washing experience. The negative naysayers may say that the biggest problem is the drying. Well, I can say, from experience, that this is not a problem at all. We hardly had to wring the clothes dry before hanging them on the sun and wind exposed washing line and they were dry in a surprisingly short period of time. I would say the only drawback to my method is that our washing would have to be exposed for all to see, but, considering that most of our camping locations are away from the general camping population, there are usually very few passers by who have to witness the wash-day 'scene'. Another benefit of having left-over water in the buckets was I was able to use the remnants for washing some dirty pans that had been waiting for some time to get a good cleaning. Watch the video to see what I mean..... So fellow boon-dockers, I challenge you to take it upon yourself to get your dirty laundry out and try my easy, uncomplicated procedure. You will be happy to be sipping cocktails after your short amount of work while watching your laundry blowing in the breeze. Think of the money you are saving and the amount of free time you still have on your hands to sit in the sun and enjoy life away from the laundromat slog.
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AuthorHi there, I am Sue. the author of this Blog, and my husband Dieter, is very much my side-kick when it comes to our travels. Since 2010, we have taken a few RV trips across America, and in doing so, we have figured out what locations suit us best and also what type of camping vehicle we like to do our travels in. This blog is meant to let people read about some of our favorite places we have been to and also, we will discuss places we want to visit in the future. We will put forward our ideas on why we chose to convert our cargo trailer into a basic off-grid home for six months of the year. CategoriesArchives
March 2019
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