Travels With Miranda

Today is quite sunny and windy, a perfect day for doing lots of laundry since it can dry so quickly. I started with the bed sheets and then did a couple of loads of tops and undies.

As I suspected, my clothesline doesn’t hold much, only about two Wonderwash loads of clothes or one of bedsheets.

The clothesline has a tendency to fall over the minute a slight breeze hits it. I tried to stake it into the ground, but only got bent tent pegs for my trouble. So I decided to try bricks and they are doing a fine job of keeping my clothesline upright in all this wind!

Here’s the antenna in the truck. The wind keeps turning the pole today and I have to keep running outside to correct it and try to get it to stop moving. I am not annoyed. I just can’t be bothered to ‘properly’ install the antenna when I plan to put a building in that part of the yard soonish.

While the current load on the line is drying, I am soaking my dish cloths and towels in a mild bleach and very hot water solution before washing them.

I really like having hot water accessible from an exterior tap! This is yet another feature of my RV that I have yet to take for granted. I don’t think I’d be so keen on doing my laundry outside if I had to traipse into the kitchen to get hot water.

Doing all this laundry today, I realised that I really should show my Wonder Wash in action.

Please excuse the pinkie in some shots, the shakiness, and the lack of focus in some parts. Also, Youtube made it blurry. 🙁 I’m adding ‘camera operator’ to my ‘ideal husband characteristics’ list. 😀 I am getting pretty good at using iMovie to edit these videos, so I imagine their quality will improve as time goes on.

Links referenced in this video:

lifeonourark.sicottepress.ca

laundry-alternative.com

squidoo.com/doing-laundry-by-hand-in-an-rv

One of the biggest challenges this winter was consistently finding good coffee to make at home. In Canada, my compromise for taste and price is Nabob Full City Metropolis. My coffee choices have been hit or miss all winter, and my latest purchase has been thoroughly a miss. L spoiled me rotten in Wichita, having a fresh pot of really good stuff available to me every morning. My morning coffee has been disappointing since Kansas.

I remembered from last year that the Dakota Magic restaurant has really good coffee. So I planned on having a lunch here, for both the coffee and to use up the rest of my U.S. cash.

I ordered a full pot of coffee (did not get through it) and a club sandwich, which came to $10. I brought half of the meal home for dinner. I’m going to miss this price/portion ratio when I get to Canada.

The coffee was sooooooooooo good. Since I only ate half my meal, I asked for a slice of pie to go with my final sips.

When I came into the restaurant, the server didn’t see me be seated and I was apparently invisible because it took AGES for her to see me. I was actually about to walk out, figuring they were too busy to take on any new customers, when she came to take my order. So when I asked for pie, she pointed to the buffet ($13 for lunch, OUCH), and told me to help myself to whatever looked good, plus ice cream if I wanted it, and that she wouldn’t charge me. That doubled her tip! I enjoyed their pecan pie with just a dollop of chocolate ice cream.

When you live alone in a small space, dining out is practically a survival mechanism. It’s an excuse to get out and do a little socialising. For me, food is food when it comes to my budget. Said budget goes further in the U.S. than in Canada and allows for more meals out, but regardless, so much per month goes to food and I eat very simply at home to cut costs (I so rarely buy desserts and junk food, for example, that saying that I never buy them is barely an exaggeration). Dining out is not a place where my budget needs to be trimmed, contrary to what some readers may think.

Another thing is that this blog is a business. When I post a review of a local restaurant, I keep a copy of the bill and the blog post and claim a partial deduction on my taxes! The logic there is that I keep a travel blog. Part of travel is discovering local cuisines and restaurants. Part of my business is travel writing. To write about travel, I have to write about food. Ergo the deduction.

I’m off to do more laundry. I did three loads this morning and now I have the heavy denim stuff to do, which will take FOREVER to dry since it’s almost impossible to wring out by hand.