Chuck Woodbury
Editor, RVtravel.com
I was thinking about my RV shower today as I basked in my home shower, soaking up the warmth. A shower is on my top five list of things I appreciate in my motorhome. The others are the kitchen, bed, toilet and heater.
In April, 2004 I explored part of Alaska in a rented RV. I was not able to use the on-board water system for fear of freezing it. So I had to search for showers. Mostly, I found them in laundries, where you can wash your clothes and yourself at the same time. But I did not like searching for showers because it delayed my morning ritual of a shower, then coffee, then consciousness.
The shower in my motorhome does an adequate job, although it can be frustrating while boondocking when I have a limited water supply. Then, I turn the water on only when washing and rinsing — unsatisfying in the chilly wintertime.
Sometimes I use a campground shower. In some parks, especially public ones during the winter, the often-unheated rooms are perhaps 40-50 degrees with ice-cold floors. So the idea is to undress super fast, soak yourself with hot water, and hopefully warm up as you clean up. About half the time this works. But sometimes the shower only operates in a straight stream. In that case, where you point the shower head determines which part of your body is warm and which part freezes.
Other possible situations when using public campground showers in the winter include:
•Undressing, then discovering there is only cold water as you stand there shivering.
•Running out of hot water with the shampoo still in your hair.
•Needing to deposit quarters to keep the water flowing. If you only have four quarters and five are needed, you spend the day coated with soap slime.
•Having to wait while another person hogs the shower.
•Getting dressed after showering with clothes that took a bath while you took a shower.
•Enduring the guy in the shower stall next to you who coughs, hacks, gags and spits. Just as bad is the guy in a nearby toilet who emits horrid gasses and makes terrible groaning noises that could be confused with the process of dying.
I wish I did not need a shower every day. Yes, I can get by and survive, but I feel dirty. In all my life, beginning when I was, say, 12, if I figure 10 minutes a day in the shower, then I have spent close to 3,500 hours — about 14 days — spewing hot water upon myself.
