IN A LATHER ABOUT SHOWERS

Showering on the road proves to be an adventure all on its own. Since installing solar we spend most of our time boondocking in quiet out of the way places where potable water is not available. Trying to conserve water makes using the shower in the RV not an option. We're not saying we're not clean, we're just saying that getting a good shower can be challenging.

While in campgrounds, we utilize the campground showers and if boondocking, we find pay showers in RV parks, campgrounds, showers in public swimming pools or, occasionally, in hostels. Our shower experiences make us laugh, grimace, wander around perplexed, feel traumatized, and, every so often, rejoice.

To achieve a successful shower, our first order of business is buying a cheap pair of flip-flops to ensure that our feet never touch any surface of the shower floor. Sometimes we forget the flip-flops and always return to get them, even if it means a five-mile walk to retrieve them. A shower bag packed with all of our products is a necessity. It is not fun to step into the shower and realize you don't have shampoo or soap or to step out of the shower with no available towel and end up using the shirt you came in to blot the water from your body. Dogged determination helps in a shower quest.

In several Texas State Parks, we dodge mesquite worms who climb the walls of the shower. There's nothing like shampooing your hair while keeping one eye on the acrobatic worms crawling and straining their body toward yours. The Texas two-step is a dance we do to avoid the bugs crawling across the shower floor. At Caprock Canyon State Park, the resident herd of bison make it their mission to keep shower-needy campers away from paths leading to the shower house. Woe to anyone carrying a red towel.

Texas shouldn't feel bad because other states have shower challenges, too. In one California park, the touted shower is one of those outdoor surfer showers near the lake. We take a modified cold shower in our swimsuits and forgo shampooing our hair. At a hostel run by genuinely friendly young men who live there for extended periods of time, we take turns waiting to shower in a single bathroom where black mildew streaks the walls. On the plus side, the water flows hot and steady. At a state park in the desert, we drop coins in a pay shower anticipating a dust-busting spray and instead get two drops of hot water or a weak stream of cold.

Worse even than showers that run cold, some showers entice you in, talk you into taking off all your clothes and slipping into your flip-flops and then give you nothing. When one shower doesn't work, we gather up everything and move to the next, which really sucks because the next shower is outside and around the other side of the building.

Three-minute showers are the standard in the pay shower world. Which means you need two sessions if you want to wash your hair along with the rest of your body. Here's how it works: Insert $1.50 for three minutes. Wait 2 minutes for the water to get warm enough to step into. Jump in, get wet, and start lathering yourself up like crazy. The shower turns off. Shampoo your hair and if you dare to risk the carnage from the goose bumps, shave your legs. Insert another $1.50 and endure only 30 seconds of cold water before luxuriating in two and a half minutes of pure bliss.

One of our favorite shower experiences happened while backpacking the Oregon coast. We pitch our tents in a private campground in the beautiful town of Cannon Beach, a very nice and expensive RV campground mostly due to its location. The neat and clean restroom with four showers available looks promising. There's a dressing room area in front of each individual shower stall with a curtain in-between to keep your stuff from getting wet. When in the dressing room everything seems normal, but stepping from the dressing room to the shower stall proves different. A six-inch step up makes the shower head chest high. To wash our face and head, we now have to duck and stoop while attempting to keep the shower curtain from sticking to our wet behinds. We laugh at this one, grateful for a hot shower, and envious of those lucky short people.

Of course, we find many great showers while on the road and feel elated when we do. A great shower is quite the treat these days. The past fifty years of life, we took showers for granted. Sometimes, while out in the middle of nowhere, a simple basin substitutes for a shower. Standing outside and out of sight, we wash hair, shave legs or just stand and bathe--no extra charge for the fresh air dry.