"How are you going to go to the bathroom, or shower?" This is how.
First off, I already have this handy dandy portable toilet. It makes an awesome sitting stool in the van already while we were making the bed platform, so I'm thinking of gluing a round cushion on top of it to make it useable and to disguise the fact that it is, in fact, my portable toilet. I have it lined with a heavy duty trash bag, first, then lined with about 10 small kitchen bags. There is no water to have to fill up or a sewer mess to dump. It's simple really, use it, sprinkle some kitty litter to mask any smell and make all solid, and toss in the garbage when you dump your regular garbage. Same as throwing a baby diaper in the trash. Some people just can't wrap their head around that.
I do aim to avail myself of business facilities while on the road, but for emergencies or middle of the night, this will work just perfect. Then again... I may just use this exclusive, at least I know only my butt has touched it. Will wait to see how gross it is out there and then decide.
The shower.. I have not set up the system just yet, but I have an idea in mind. I do, however, already own one of these, I have yet to try it.
What I aim to do for this setup is to have a divider half wall constructed next to the potty area. Not only will this enable us to attach the plastic bins to the wall for more stability, it will also partially enclose the 'bathroom' area. The potty will sit in a short square basin that will be my shower base. The divider wall will have a hoola hoop attached near the top with which my shower curtain will hang from. It makes sense in my head right now, it is hard to explain it on here though. I will take pics of the progress of that when we get started on that. But for now, my intention is to heat the solar shower bag on the dash, remove potty from basin, attach solar shower bag near ceiling, sit folding step stool in basin for me to sit on, bring curtains around, and shower. Dump basin outside after done with shower. Put potty back in place.
Other alternatives are baby wipes. A bowl with heated water and wash rags. Squirt bottles. Camp soap that doesn't require rinsing. Washing the body isn't that hard to figure out. The hard part is figuring out my hair.
So lets talk hair. Hair is just below shoulder in length. It's not thick at all, fairly thin. But dang it can use the water to get it washed, rinsed, conditioned, and rinsed. It's taken me a long while to figure out my hair does not like heating tools taken to it. I rarely blow dry my hair, maybe 10 times a year, if that. I rarely take a styling tool to it anymore. Guess what, I hardly have any split ends anymore, either. I've also decided a few years ago that too much washing was not good for my hair. I stripped the natural oils off with daily washing, and my scalp over compensated from the stripping by producing even more oil. Which made my hair feel greasy if I skipped a day. Counter-intuitive, huh?
So, it took a while, but I gradually lengthened the time between shampooing, trying to get my sebum oil production back to where it is supposed to be. I quit using so many products, just use a bit of light spray only now. I quit coloring it, too, and it is it's natural color. I can go maybe a week now between shampooing before my hair feels greasy. It always smells good. That is just normal day to day, not doing sweaty, grimy gross things. So every 5-7 days I'll have to figure out how to wash the hair. I may use the whole solar bag, sitting with my head over the basin, with extra water jugs near by just in case to rinse it all. I am trying out a 2-in-1 type shampoo plus conditioner now to see if I can cut water usage down, may try that out before heading on my other trips. Am not worried about Texas, I know can use the shower at mom and dad's and little sis's if I'm real nice.
Here's one of my favorite scenes about germs and showering from the late great, George Carlin:
#VanConversion #Camping #CampingGear
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