Solar Shower Redux

This past weekend could not be beat for camping, clear and sunny with a high of 73F in August. The dog loved the break in hot weather more than anyone.



The solar shower I set up earlier this summer has been working well in some respects. The water heats up to a nice pleasant temperature after a couple hours in the sun, and each bag provides for about 10 minutes of water flow. It has a couple of issues, though, which I wanted to fix. The short hose that comes with each shower is made of plastic that is too pliable, and so it tends to pinch easily. Also, by hanging the shower bag from a rope, I can only get it as high as I can lift, which is not high enough to stand under and still have decent water flow.



My first improvement was to replace the existing hose with something thicker. I found this nice braided hosing at the hardware store. It is the same inner diameter as the old hose, but is far thicker and stiffer.



I also decided to replace the standard shower head with something a bit fancier. I grabbed the cheapest shower head in the store. This is the kind with a low flow restrictor than can be pulled out and tossed, which is just what I did. I combined the head with a ball valve and a barb adapter for connecting to the new hose



The valve is necessary because I planned to raise the bag far overhead, where the shutoff valve on the shower bag would be out of reach. For this, I picked up some awning hardware.



And mounted the pulley high up a tree.



Shower wand assembled, I looped the hose through the same rigging from which I used to hang the shower bags. This allows me to stand under the shower without holding it up, but also to pull the shower head down for rinsing.



And here is the full set up, read to go.



The new set up worked great. The shower stall is no longer crowded with the bag, and the shower flows steady from head to toe. It is probably as good as a shower gets when camping out in the woods.

Canaan Valley Motorcycle Trip

I am a couple of weeks late in posting this, but nursery preparations were in full swing! My old friend from college, Joe, came down from New Jersey for a weekend of camping and motorcycle riding. That would be Joe's beautiful Harley in the foreground. The more egalitarian Suzuki in the back would be mine.



Using Camp May as home base, I planned out a big figure-eight route to take us up and down the mountains of the Allegheny front. This is really some of the best motorcycling country on the east coast. Beautiful scenery, smooth winding mountain roads, and little traffic made for a great day of riding. The map above is the planned route (click itfor the full size version). We generally followed this route, with a few diversions that added on another 50 miles or so. The western extent of the route is up the Canaan Valley, so I took to calling it the "Canaan Valley Loop." For the next big trip, I would like to alter the route south, going through the Spruce Knob area and spending more time in the Monongahela Forest.



We stopped at Seneca Rocks for lunch. Those are the rocks behind us. There is a great little cafe on the second floor of a general store. They have balcony seating with a view of the rocks. The general store is the same one where Lizz and I waited several hours for a tow truck after being run off the road during an ice storm. Joe and I rode the bikes around the same hairpin turn where Lizz and I went off the road. There is now a guard rail on that turn. I feel there should at least be a plaque dedicating it to us.



Joe stayed two nights in camp. This gave me a chance to try out the guest accommodations on someone. The guest house consists of an air mattress in the bed of my truck, and an adjoining, connected SUV tent to add some living space. Joe reports that the setup was very comfortable for sleeping. He expected to be curled up on our camper's tiny dinette, so maybe it was just the relative luxury that appealed to him.