Ever since I was an apartment dweller, I have enjoyed laundry day. There is something satisfying about hauling a ton of dirty clothing into a building, and hauling a ton of fresh clean clothing out a couple hours later.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the convenience of having laundry facilities at home, so I can start and stop at my leisure. Unfortunately, my leisure always seems to be “at bedtime” on sheet-washing day.

Laundry on the road

I do enjoy laundry days on the road. I probably shouldn’t have admitted to Tony how much I like it. He used to think it was a huge undertaking for me, and he did all the stuff around the camper that needed doing to thank me for my great sacrifice. Now he knows I enjoy it and don’t consider it a hardship at all. He might stop making me dinner while I do the wash.

Carry it like Santa

It occurred to me this week that I’m still using the same old nylon stuff sack that I used back in my apartment days. I thought it might be time to upgrade, and I was out shopping so I checked out the options. Ooh, I thought, a canvas bag with backpack straps. Nice!

But then I realized, those backpacks aren’t washable. I’m not completely against putting my clean clothes into the bag that housed my dirties, but the nylon bag is so easy to just throw into the washer with a load, and then it is as clean as the fresh laundry. So that’s a win.

Also, we recently got a Lippert wagon and I use it now to haul the laundry, the soap and other supplies, and my backpack with my laptop to the laundry room, so I don’t really have a need for backpack straps. Plus, if I carry my laundry on my back, where will I carry my laptop?

Choose your ‘mat

Not all laundromats are created equally. When we are on the road, we do use campgrounds occasionally and one reason is to get laundry caught up. Sometimes, either there isn’t a laundry room at the campground, or we simply have too much to wash and need to “go to town” and find a large bank of washers.

One of my favorite laundromats is in Quartzsite, Arizona. There are so many machines, and I always meet someone interesting when I am there. One day Tony was doing laundry with me, and we were fascinated that we could see the fire behind the bank of dryers!

Last fall, we stayed at a campground that had two large laundry rooms. And their machines used an app called Wash-Connect. That is a clever system. I pre-loaded my “card” in the app and did all my laundry using that app. In fact, I accidentally over-loaded it and when I saw my friend Abby headed to the laundry room, I went with her and bought her a wash load. Waste-not, want-not, right?

I look forward to when all campgrounds - and laundromats - use that app. Then I won’t over-load it because I can always use the credit in the future. For now, I have to get back into the habit of saving quarters.

Multi-tasking

Back in those apartment days, I would take my homework and, interrupted only by moving clothes into different machines, I could be really productive.

Now I like doing laundry on days that I have a podcast audio file to edit. I get the washing machines going, and set up my laptop and headphones, and enjoy the fresh smell and warm air of the laundry room while I get my work done.

Washing at your home - on the road

We did buy a portable washing machine for when we have just a few things to wash and we are at a full hookup campground. It doesn’t dry, but it spins really fast so clothes come out pretty drip-free and we can hang them up to dry. We have used it both inside in the bathtub, and outside with the drain hose right into the sewer.

A lot of larger RVs have laundry setups built right in; either one machine that does both washing and drying, or a small stackable combo. We saw a combo installed in place of an outdoor kitchen at an RV show - that’s clever if you do a lot of laundry but not a lot of outdoor meal preparation!

Sometimes it’s a chore

This week laundry day came up. I did indeed have a podcast to edit. So I loaded up my Lippert wagon and my backpack, and headed to the laundry room.

It was not my most pleasant laundry day.

There were only two washers and two dryers. And for some reason, it was the busiest laundry room ever! Both washing machines were in use when I arrived. No worries, I had lots of work to keep me busy while I waited. The lady using washer 1 told me she would wait for one load to finish and do her second load in the same machine, so I could get started when washer 2. That wasn’t too long a wait, and I set up my work station right outside (there wasn’t much room indoors) and when the woman came in to empty the washer, I knew the trouble was starting. I}She was washing rugs. That’s fine. But then she told me how much she loves her dog, but not how much her dog sheds. Oh boy. She grabbed some TP from the bathroom and tried to wipe out some of the dog hair, but there was a lot. I hope not too much of it stuck to my clothing…

The first hurtle being jumped, I got my first load started. You know, in the dog hair-infested washing machine. I went back outside and started editing.

Through no fault of the campground, or dog lovers, or anything else laundry-related, my computer was really crashy that day. Strike two on my lovely laundry day.

The wash was $3.25, which I think is pretty normal. The dryer said “insert $0.75” so I thought it was a good compromise, a nice cheap dry to make up for the wash price. Well, I soon discovered that those three quarters only got me 10 minutes of tumbled heat. TEN minutes! Blah! We don’t wear anything that will get dry in 10 minutes!

I had not prepared for this day completely. I ran out of quarters after I finished washing and drying just two loads of laundry. That’s ok, I had also run out of patience with my computer. Plus, it was getting cold outside, so I figured I was out of time as well.

Still a good day

I will still love laundry day. In fact, since I only got half of the job done this week, I’ll get a chance to have another one really soon. I think I’ll search for a larger laundromat, and maybe I’ll get lucky and find one that uses the Wash Connect app!