The art of shaving…and other RV adventures

Let me start this post by saying that the minor complaints described in this post are indeed minor and emblematic of decidedly first world problems.  I make this statement partly to protect myself from charges of whining – but mostly because I just finished reading diaries of early pioneer women.  I typically avoid museum gift shops, but I make an exception for National Park gift shops.  Turns out they have an excellent selection of books curated to match the setting of the park.  When we were visiting the Arch in St. Louis, the gift shop there had all sorts of books about pioneer adventures because St. Louis was the launching point for many an overland journey during the early years of westward expansion.  I picked up a book titled “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey.”  The book is divided into two sections.  The first, an analysis of over 100 diaries. This reads a bit like someone’s PhD thesis.  The second, a collection of actual diaries – fascinating!  Suffice it to say… my complaints are hilarious when compared to these diaries.  The early pioneer women were afflicted by cholera, afraid of Indian attacks, trying to cook in the pouring rain, having to resume a very difficult journey only hours after childbirth…  All of those challenges make our modern-day inconveniences of the overland journey seem silly indeed!

Shaving

First, while RV’s are indeed convenient and luxurious compared to camping, they do have limits.  We will probably dedicate a full post to the differences between RV parks, State parks and boondocking – but in general RV living Muir-N-Slager style requires some level of resource conservation regardless of where we are camped.  Which leads me to the topic of shaving.  I will leave alone the question of why women shave their legs in the first place (Mike Haney, if you are following, take heart, this is not an argument against!).  Let’s just assume leg shaving is a mandatory part of personal hygiene for the purposes of this post.  At home, in my gorgeous shower with fabulous water pressure shaving is a straightforward matter.  I can’t say I ever really thought about it.  In the RV however, think you must!  First, shaving with the water running is a horrendous waste of water.  Second, even if you have the water to waste (and we don’t) the hot water heater isn’t big enough to compensate for the extravagance of a 15 minute shower for one person – much less 4 persons.  You could try and shave using the sink, but that is a feat of gymnastics not practical for daily purposes in our tiny sink.  I tried turning the water off mid-shower to shave but that wasn’t practical either because I tended to get cold and thus get goosebumps which makes shaving a dangerous sport. So… here is the drill.  You get a bowl from the “kitchen” and fill it with about a cup of water.  Then you squeeze into our tiny shower and shave using that little bowl as your only water source.  This method avoids goosebumps and uses one cup of water.  Voila, shaving in the RV.  Complicated, sort of inconvenient, but an excellent use of limited resources and still basically accomplishes the task. I should be excited and maybe a tiny bit smug about my reduced environmental footprint – but mostly I miss the abundance of my Charlotte shower (and feel a little guilty admitting it!).

Cooking

The other major RV trial is cooking.  In theory anything I could cook in Charlotte I can also cook in the RV.  That said, comparatively speaking, I had MILES of countertop in Charlotte but only about 4 sq ft of counter space in the RV (see compare below).  You have to execute Houdini like moves to cook anything the least bit complicated.  Then there is the stove….oh the stove.  My great nemesis on this trip.  Let’s start with the cooktop.  Apparently, it is a well-known issue that Furrion stoves (apparently the only brand of stoves that go in an RV) don’t have adequate temperature controls.  The stove has two modes – a high boil and a wicked-high boil.  If you want to simmer you either have to play this game where you constantly move the pan on and off the flame or you buy this little metal plate called a simmer plate that (in theory) will calm the whole thing down.  The simmer plate does work – mostly – but if you want to attempt anything lower than a rolling simmer you are SOL.  In comparison, my fancy Charlotte stove will practically make a delicate roux on auto-pilot.

On to the stove. Another temp control conundrum.  Let’s say you want to cook something at 350. First you light the stove.  You can compare this to lighting a boiler circa 1950.  First you get a pilot light going – then you pray that you don’t blow yourself up when you turn on the gas.  Then you REALLY pray once you close the oven door because about 40% of the time the flames go out altogether giving you a little gas explosion waiting to happen.  Back to 350.  In our RV, 350 should be thought about as a target temperature, not the actual temperature at which your food will cook.  You will put it on 400 to get it going because as soon as you open the oven it will drop at least 15 degrees.  Then, for reasons I don’t really understand it has a vague temperature drop even after the door is closed.  I say vague because sometimes it is a rapid drop of 5-10 degrees and sometimes it just rambles down a few degrees.  Total mystery.  We are, however, getting adept at solving the mystery – each dish requires constant vigilance and tweaking – and prayer might help here too.

Additional kitchen adventures involve dishwashing.  My mom will have to weigh in here but I vaguely remember hand washing dishes in my first childhood home so I presume we may not have had a dishwasher.  But since about the age of 12, I have lived in a home with a dishwasher.  This does not seem like a luxury – dishwashers have been standard issue in the American home since the 80’s.  Oh but it is a luxury!  I will never use a dishwasher again without gratitude in my heart.  I used to think doing the dishes was a pain – ha!

One adventure that has proven less difficult than imagined was lack of ancillary appliances.  I used to think my coffee maker an essential part of life and my stand mixer an equal partner to the oven.  Although I don’t go in for most trendy appliances (no rice cooker, instant pot, Keurig, Foreman grill, vacuum sealer, etc for me!) I do get enormous satisfaction from daily use of my go-to appliances.  Bringing those things into an RV seemed totally impractical so I narrowed it down to the essentials – a crock pot for stews and other “cook while we hike” food categories, a hand mixer, a handheld immersion blender (already used for canning apricot jam!) and a toaster.  Coffee is achieved via a French press – which makes me feel both sophisticated and totally undercaffeinated (alas not big enough).  All in all we are getting by with a fraction of the appliances, measuring devices, serving pieces, etc. we used to use on a frequent basis.  That being said, I have yet to try entertaining in the RV (many of the aforementioned items were used in the service of entertaining).  And I do miss hosting friends and family for evenings of food and conversation.  Something to look forward to when we return to civilization.

There are other adventures to be had in an RV.  Toilets are a favorite subject – we make endless bad jokes in reference to the dreaded “black water” tank.  I will save that one for a later post – Dan will probably issue a treatise on RV plumbing for those of you with a good sense of humor and strong stomach. 

With that, I will sign off, go hug your dishwasher and send me good wishes!