More questions for the fulltimers..

Obviously, storage is an issue in an egg. How do you dress? (No.. not.. left sock, left shoe..) How do you scale down the wardrobe to fit?

Most eggers I have seen camping don't bring suits, male or female, but I am sure on occasion, you run into circumstances where one is needed. How do you balance the blue jeans and T shirts with that and still keep the items to a minimum?

In my case, one hanger in my closet had gray slacks, blue blazer, white shirt and tie. The rest of my outfit was T's, shorts, socks, underwear, plus a couple of heavy weather shirts, sweaters, long johns and parka.

Like the one full time lady said, "We keep moving, so the folks here don't have any idea what I wore yesterday...".

The saying goes that we wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time, so maybe we just need to get rid of the 80% we are not wearing and do laundry often for the rest. I like Pete's suggestion of one good outfit for who knows what, and the rest is casual and foldable. What we carry depends on the climate...hot , cold, wet. Another good rule is "new item in...old item out".

Vivian

I only used the "dress" stuf a couple of times. Otherwise, I did laundry about once every week or ten days, depending on what I was using.

We have one tupperware packer for cool weather clothing, and one for warm weather for each one of us. We carry a three season jacket ands a couple of fleece vests for each of us. Most summer clothing is purchased at Walmart or another discount store, that way if it gets stained or ragged, we don.t feel too bad about using it to check the oil in the tow vehicle. Rosemary carries a broom skirt and a dress blouse and I carry a sport jacket in the closet for "Good" occasions. Our trailer wardrobe is packed year round so we can move out at any time.

I believe thats true!

I LOVE clothes so I intend to take that 20% somehow!
I mean how many pots & pans do you need!?

Really, I want to check out those vacuum sealed clothes storage systems to see if it may be a viable way to store more clothes

Anyone have one?

Umm, wouldn't that imply one would have a vacuum cleaner handy? Whatever for? That's why car washes have the big suckers, for the occasional cleaning.

The object is to cut back on stuf, not have more!

vaccuum cleaner on board here. Carpet is on the floor

On my Trill the carpet has snaps so you take out and wash/clean then put back in.One of the best ideas i have ever seen.

I have a redneck friend that only has 7 pairs of socks. I asked him why (I have like... 50...)

He said, "Why, 1 for monday, one for tuesday, 1 for wednesday..you get the idea"

OK, so, you have 7 pairs of underwear then too?

"Oh, heavens no, I have 12!"

12??? why so many????

"1 for January, 1 for February...."

We have tried those storage bags and found that the seals did not work well so that air entered and they did not stay as flat as we expected.

Vivian

Gina,
My buddy, the Chicago garbage man, claims you only need 6 underwears, because every other month you turn them indside out.

Actually, that's the way my wardrobe is even not fulltiming -- About enough underwear, socks and t-shirts for a week and then into the laundry.

I have carpet in the Scamp but put down some inexpensive mats from Wally, shake and sweep with an occasional vacuum cleaning at the car wash. A better way would be hard floors with a rug or two.

I don't fulltime but I would do the same as I currently do . I go on extended vacations and only wash clothes once a month when I run out of undies. I put underwear in zip locks, 7 in each and squeeze the air out. That's 4 bags. I put a weeks worth of socks in bags also, but only 3 bags. In the summer I wear sandles often, no need for lots of socks. These items and summer/winter jammies fit in one side of my rear overhead cabinet. In the other side I fold about 6/8 nice tops.

My closet has been converted to shelves. I have no problem putting a dozen or more folded tees in there. As well, as 6/8 shorts and 2/3 levis. Sweats top/bottom and flannel shirts go in a container under the bed as well as a good pair of slacks. I have a hook behind the screen door frame that holds my winter/summer jackets. They are bungeed to keep them out of my way when I sit on the couch.

Unless you have hygiene problem you can wear outer clothing a couple of times. Sometimes I might consider washing clothes at 3 weeks. You wonder what I do with a months worth of dirty clothes. A light weight cotton dirty clothes bag makes a get bolster on the bed.

I also have 2 pairs of tennies, 1 hiking boots and 1 dress up sandles and 2 everyday sandles. They are either under the bed or in the Jeep.

I know I could full time with the same configuration. If I tired of something I'd toss it and purchase new.

For extended trips I have a large dowel with a couple of wire hooks on the ends which fit easily over two built-in hooks in the rear of the Honda. The full width of the vehicle can accommodate suits, the various pants and shirts, the odd tuxedo, ballroom gown, etc. without trashing the view out back when we are unhooked. The closet takes the rest, plus there are a number of hooks on the outside of the bathroom wall.

Whenever we are on vacation my uniform is tee shirt shorts and sandals.
I figure when I retire that will be my full time outfit.
If it gets to cold for that its time to move on.

We carry clothes for two weeks for two people. Usually I end up washing clothes once a week and am trying to get myself to downsize my carry on.

Wet towels. What do people do? We always have towels strung around in the back of the van after showers. Either over bicycles or hung from clotheslines I string around in the van.

I'm not real wild about micro fiber and have not yet gone to hand towels for showers. We do use thin old ones at least.

OK, so we need to spend more time in the desert where stuff will dry instead of rainy places.

Thanks Joy and Per for your ideas.

Nancy

Have you tried "micro fiber towels"? I assume you something like this. I've used this type of towel and they work pretty darn good. Now you've reminded me I might need to update my 1980 version.

Have you tried micro fiber towels? They work really good. Now you've reminded me I just ordered two of these.
(Love REI dividends)

Thanks

I installed towel rails (with the rails made of bungie cords stretched between two wood blocks -- much kinder to a hip, elbow, or shoulder that bums into them) on the back of our "bathroom" door. I'm planning to replace our bathroom door with something that has a kind of "panel door" look, with a curvy central mirror (from IKEA) bracketed by punched aluminum panels that will increase ventilation and help the towels dry faster.

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Byron, thanks for the links. I have looked at those, but ones (cheaper) I have not liked at all. The two you have links for are different fabrics. Would you post later what you think of the one you ordered? The one you ordered comes in two colors, like that. If I could feel dry after using one I would be happy to switch from cotton.

Peter, lucky you to have a bathroom door! Good idea. I just have eye hooks all over the place for my clotheslines. Dry the stuff (in trailer) going down the road during the day, strung around the van during the night.

Nancy

We've had luck with an electric towel-warmer on the bathroom wall. 43 watts (off an inverter when boondocking).

If you have a dedicated space for wet stuff, whether it's a full bath or back of a truck inside a canopy... if you can get the air moving, even cool air, stuff will dry. I've been known to open the outside window in my trailer bathroom and turn on a fan (that clamps on to the shower rod) on high to dry some soggy towels. I was hooked up to shore power so running the fan for hours wasn't a problem and it did the trick.

We have 2 sets of towel racks inside the bathroom. One on the inside of the bathroom door (as seen in the photo) and another like it on the wall over the toilet.
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We also have towel racks on the inside of the entry door.
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and on the outside of the closet door (no picture).

Hi all - we borrowed a terrific idea from Joy A. Since we added an upper storage cabinet over the dinette/bed in the rear, we can use two tension-type shower rods. Joy's installation was permanent but this works well for us - we store the rods when towing. If park rules permit, sometimes we just drape our towels over the patio chairs to dry in the sun.

Now that we are back in the west, things dry MUCH faster than in the humidity of the mid-west & Florida. L 'n D

Yeap, my first trip in my Scamp it drove me crazy that there was no where to hang towels. Having the overhead rear cabinet I took a 1 inch dowel cut to size and placed it in between the rear cabinet and the cabinet over the sink. I simply ran a screw through the cabinets into the dowel. I did the same for the curb side between the overhead cabinet and the closet.

Placed the dowels far enough away from the windows that I could hang clothes on hangers if I ever chose to. This distance was just such that I was able to add shelves behind the rods. I use the shelves for VCR/DVD's on the street side and CD's on the curb side. I use the street side rod for kitchen towels and the curb side holds bath towels while drying.

It doesn't seem like many of you consider the tow vehicle as a place to store things. That would seem to make much more sense to me than having to trip over things or squeeze them into the trailer. Good place to hang dress clothes, too; usually you can hang a suit bag in the back seat.

Bobbie

I hung wet stuf like towels and swim suits in the back of the pickup; hatch was open in camp during day and side windows partly open on the road.

We even take our sleeping bags to the tow vehicle and lay them out over stuff in the back. It is surprising how damp they actually are after sleeping in them. Then by evening they are warm and dry when we take them back into the Scamp.

This is surprising to me. I've slept more nights than I can to say in sleeping bags of all kinds. I've never had a bag get damp from the inside. The only reason I can think that would cause a bag to get damp from the inside is the outer shell doesn't allow the bag to breathe. I remember a number of years ago somebody trying to sell a sleeping bag with a water proof shell so you could sleep in the rain without a tent. Didn't work, the bag got wet from the inside.

Airing a bag out is always a good idea. But I'm not so sure there isn't something wrong with a bag design that gets damp from the inside.

If the bags are too warm for the conditions, the sleepers may be sweating more than usual and challenging the bags' breathing capabilities, esp if the humidity inside the egg is high.

I didn't think about that. I've experienced too hot early in the night, then I've opened the zipper a bit to let some cool air in and usually by morning zipping things up. Maybe part of the reason I've never had that problem is we have 3 bags of different insulation values. The one we use in the trailer most of the time is a 50° bag and thermostat is set at 50°. For those warmer nights we have a lighter yet no shell fleece bag. For those cold nights in the tent a 15° bag, which I control the inside temperature with the zipper.

You have never been, and never will be, a middle aged "intact" female.

and don't argue with me about that, K?

You're right, I'll never have that problem.

Not quite sure how we moved from clothing to bring camping, to wet sleeping bags on the inside, to middle aged "intact" females. Only could happen on fiberglassRV...

I aint sayin nuthin.

I'll be blunt... HOT FLASHES... and we get NIGHT SWEATS, which is different than wearing sweats from Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren

Saves the propane, no need to run the furnace in the winter

My wife calls them Power Surges.

Anyone who's experienced hot flashes knows how a sleeping bag gets damp inside. And regular beds and bedding, and pillow cases...

Darn, you got the jump on me on that one.

I've never experienced hot flashes. Once is a while I have a bright idea flash, but that goes away before it can cause any troubles.

Okay back on topic, otherwise we'll have to move this entire thread to Jokes and Tall Tales

I use an extension rod inside the trailer bathroom as my closet. I can hang clothing in the back portion and it really doesn't interfere with using the facilities. It's nice if my coat gets soaking wet (or swimsuits, etc.) I can just let them drip in the shower area. No problemo.
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Our REI towels arrived today. I haven't tried it yet, but Anne just did. According to her they do nice job of getting you dry, better than terry cloth. Just 5 minutes after use they're already dryer than a terry cloth towel would be.

I'll add my results tomorrow.

Anne gets to bath on odd #ed days, Byron on even ones. It's a leap year, so they will run into problems this weekend, I think

I too use the bathroom for heavily wet stuff... it's a wet bath.. thats what it's there for!

My bath towel usually hangs on a loop holder just outside the bathroom, which is conveniently located directly across from my furnace.

For storage, I got a plastic bin about normal "Tub" size at big lots. It has ventilation, and handles. It fits perfectly under my bed on the floor, so it acts as a giant drawer. Linens and things go in the overhead storage.

My clothes closet now has shelves in it and it's used for my dishes and pans etc. A carry over of a mod from my original 13 footer. Very handy!

I have a crhome fixture with scrolly bits and hooks for my jackets and hats right inside the door.

Can't take pics, my rig is still down the hill. It will come home this weekend

Gotta save money for gas somehow.

I find I can pack LOADS of cloth items if I use one of those cloth storage cases rather than a suitcase or RubberMaid container. They come in different sizes so I can sort the clothing and tuck it away in some of the small corners, although the ones I bought match my decor and can be left out in the open. They also have small cedar strips tucked into the inside flaps (I bought them that way) so it keeps out the moths and helps everything smell fresh.

Now...if only I could find a place for my shoe collection...

Signed,

Imelda Marcos