Simply Belle

We’re all set for the next trip. To solve our bathroom problem, my husband bought a sanitary tent designed for bath and toilet needs. One day without a bath is bearable but two days are uncomfortable. We will just have to haul extra supply of water for bathing - the tabo (ladle) way. My husband learned the art of tabo bathing in my friend’s house in the province, and is pretty good at doing it now, I must say. He was telling a friend of his, one time, on how to go about it. He said, he lathers himself down with little water and soap, and rinses it off with a tabo, and does his head and back last because wetting the back of his neck makes him cold. It is the other way around for me. I shampoo and wash my hair first, then soap my arms, legs, and private parts, and the body comes last accompanied with jumping up and down if the air temperature is cold. Stumping the feet usually helps combat the cold.

For the shower, we need to use a special kind of soap - a biodegradable one so it will not harm our environment.

With this porta-potty, we don’t have to worry about going quite a ways, and hiding behind the bushes…hehehe. I am pretty lucky that I haven’t felt the urge to do it this way, so far. The concept is similar to a child’s training potty, only with a pouch below to hold it. After you finish doing the potty, you secure the pouch and deposit it in the trash can. It has some kind of chemicals that congeal the contents inside so it will not run or smell. Get the drift? Ahh, I am not sure if I will be able to sit on it and do the thing. It is a matter of getting used to it but, if push comes to shove, I have to use it no matter what.

Next thing he plans to buy in the future is a shower head. It has a battery pump that pumps the water from the bucket to the small tank which then gets heated with a propane heater, and once the water is heated to a comfortable temperature, gets transported to the shower head. Neat idea, I thought, which makes camping easy and more pleasant.

Wait! Where will I hook my blow dryer to make my hair pretty and straight? My husband said to forget it. He suggested that I stick my head out of the window when the car is moving. Tsk tsk, men are clueless when it comes to women’s grooming.