laundry | Rubber Tramp Artist

There were yurts in the campground where the Mercantile was located. People could rent the yurts for $85 per night. The yurts were basically glorified tents with wooden floors and furniture. The furniture included a futon that converted from a couch into a double (or maybe a queen) bed, a bunk bed with a double bed on the bottom and a singe on top, a wooden bedside table, and a wooden rocking chair. Unlike the traditional Mongolian dwellings on which these camping structures were based, these yurts had windows with flaps outside that rolled down for privacy. There was no electricity in the yurts–or anywhere in the campground–and no running water within a ten mile radius. The yurts were also without heat. Even so, the half dozen yurts in the campground were booked nearly every weekend and often during the week too.

A green yurt with a brown door is covered with a dusting of snow. Snow is on the ground in the foreground and trees are in the background. — Yurt in the snow

I could understand the appeal. Some people don’t want to sleep on the cold, cold ground. (I sure as heck don’t!) Some people have physical limitations that make sleeping on the ground impossible. Some people are too afraid of spiders, snakes, bugs, and other critters to even contemplate sleeping on the ground with them. The yurts were sort of a middle ground between sleeping in a tent or not going camping at all.

Not only were the yurts lacking in electricity, running water, and heat, no linens were provided for the beds. This lack of bedding was a practical consideration. Sheets and blankets and pillow cases would have to be changed between guests, and the nearest place to the campground to do laundry was 25 mountain miles away. Each yurt would need a minimum of two sets of sheets and blankets for each bed so fresh linens would be available even in the event of back-to-back check ins. Someone (probably the already overworked camp host) would have to drive the dirty bedding the 50 mile round trip to the tiny laundromat with one one coin operated washer and one coin operated dryer. That person would likely have to spend a whole day loading linens into washer/out of washer, into dryer/out of dryer, then folding, folding, folding. Providing linens just wasn’t practical, so the yurts were strictly BYOB (Bring Your Own Bedding).

Whenever visitors in the Mercantile asked me about the yurts (and multiple people asked every week), I always explained that folks who stayed in the yurts had to provide their own bedding, either sheets and blankets or sleeping bags, I spelled it out for them.

Unfortunately, the reservation website doesn’t spell things out for campers quite as well as I did. While the website gives the (questionably punctuated) information

No Pets, No cooking or No smoking allowed in the Yurts[,]

it doesn’t say anything about bedding not being provided. Ooops! Hopefully when a person actually reserves a yurt, the reservation information includes details on the lack of bed linens.

Many visitors to the mountains don’t understand that the higher they go in elevation, the cooler the temperature will be be, especially at night. Sometimes people staying in the yurts brought bedding, but not enough of it to stay warm. The camp hosts in 2016 were super sweet and lived in a converted school bus with plenty of room, so they would loan their personal extra bedding to yurt dwellers who were cold. I appreciated their generosity (as I’m sure the campers did too), but I would never loan my blankets to strangers. First of all, when I live in my van, I don’t have room for extras. Secondly, sometimes people are harboring bugs! Besides, campers should plan ahead and prepare for all eventualities, even if they are going to sleep in a yurt. Yurts are a bit sturdier than regular tents, and the walls are a bit thicker, but not by much.

Javier and Sandra, the camp hosts my last year on the mountain were nice people too, but they were also vandwellers without room to spare for extra bedding. When campers arrived unprepared for their night in a yurt, there was nothing the camp hosts could offer but sympathy.

One evening I was hanging out with Javier and Sandra on their campsite when a European couple arrived. There was some discussion I couldn’t hear between the man who’d been driving and Sandra. I did hear Sandra say they should find the yurt and she’d be over before dark to do the check-in paperwork. The couple drove off, and I began saying my good-byes so Sandra and Javier could finish their work before they ran out of daylight.

Before I could leave the host site, the European man had driven back to the front of the campground and was asking about bedding. The mattresses in the yurt were bare, he said, and they hadn’t brought any linens. Did Sandra and Javier have any sheets and blankets they could use?

Javier and Sandra shook their heads. No. Sorry. Linens were not provided in the yurts.

The fellow wanted to know what they should do.

I asked if they had sleeping bags. I thought maybe if their itinerary included actual camping at some point they might have camping gear.

The fellow said no. They hadn’t brought sleeping bags. Then he asked if there was any place nearby that might sell bedding.

I told him the Mercantile had sold out of both sleeping bags and blankets. If there had been anything useful in the store and if he could pay cash and if he didn’t need change, I would have unlocked the door and helped him out. However, during the last cold snap, unprepared campers had wiped us out of all things warm.

Sandra told him there was a general store about 25 miles away that maybe sold sleeping bags, but she didn’t know if the store was open so late in the day. She also mentioned the store 35 miles away in the opposite direction that sold outdoor supplies. Maybe that store had sleeping bags.

The European man stood and stared at us in disbelief.

Of course there’s Wal-Mart, Javier said. He explained it was at the bottom of the mountain and about 60 miles from the campground.

It was obvious the camper didn’t want to drive 25 miles (and back!), much less 60. He just stood there and looked at us, and Sandra kept repeating that she was sorry. Finally the camper got back in his car and drove to the yurt where he and the lady would be spending a chilly night. At least they might have enjoyed the cuddling they probably had to do to stay warm.

Having never reserved a yurt, I don’t know if the reservation paperwork spelled out the lack of linens and if it did, how prominently that information was displayed. I do know if I were paying to stay anywhere other than a conventional hotel or motel, I would find out if bedding was included instead of assuming it was.

I took the photo in this post.

I’d decided to go to Bigger Babylon on my day off to shop at Trader Joe’s. (I especially like their precooked brown rice. For $1.69, you get a couple of servings. Sure, I could buy raw brown rice cheaper, but by the time I used fuel to cook it for 45 minutes, I don’t think I’d be saving much–if any–money.)

I checked for truck stops in Bigger Babylon and discovered there was a Flying J with showers and public laundry facilities. Flying J is my favorite of the truck stop brands, so I was happy to find one.

I arrived around eight o’clock on a Monday night. The first thing I did was look for the laundry facilities. The three washers and six dryers were tucked in a narrow hallway between the truckers’ lounge (which consisted of about a dozen padded, possibly comfy chairs and a flat screen television mounted high up on the wall) and the showers.

As I looked across the truckers’ lounge, I noticed a woman sitting in the back row of chairs. Lone women lingering at truck stops are rare enough to be noticeable. Of course, there are women truckers and the wives of truckers who ride along, but this woman had a certain look about her. Her short blond hair was slicked back. She was wearing all black, and although she was a big woman, her top was sleeveless and strapless, showing off a large tattoo on her upper chest. (I think the tattoo was a word, a name perhaps, but I didn’t let my eyes linger on it long enough to read it.) She was wearing a “gold” choker made up of large, rectangular links. But really though, it was the shoes that gave her away. No trucker or trucker’s wife would be wearing shoes like those at the Flying J. They were black with high, high heels. She was sitting with one knee crossed over the other, dangling one of those ridiculous shoes off the end of her toes. If we’d been in a strip club, I’d have thought of them as stripper shoes, but since we were in a truck stop, all I could think was HOOKER!

I’ve been in a lot of truck stops all over the United States of America, and I have never before looked at a woman in one of them and so clearly thought HOOKER. (I’ve heard that prostitutes that work truck stops are referred to as “lot lizards.” See Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lot+lizard) I’m not scandalized by sex workers and don’t think it’s necessarily morally wrong to buy or sell sex, but this woman didn’t look particularly enpowered or even happy. She looked really sad. What could be sadder than a truck stop hooker sitting in the truckers’ lounge and getting no attention? What career choices does a lady have once she has failed as a truck stop hooker?

I walked through the truckers’ lounge, trying not to give off any vibes that would attract attention, making eye contact with no one. I dumped some detergent in two of the washers and loaded in my clothes. There was no change machine in the laundry area, so I had to walk back through the lounge and to the front counter registers to get quarters. Each washer cost $2.25 a load, so I put in the quarters and let the machines get to work.

It was so hot outside and especially in my van, that I just stayed inside and texted friends while waiting for my clothes to be ready for the dryer. The dryers also cost $2.25 each. A sign on one of them said a cycle lasted 45 minutes. Although the dryer did run for a really long time, my clothes were still disappointingly damp when the cycle ended. I was not going to pay another $2.25 or hang around in there any longer, so I just folded my clothes and shoved them in my tote bags, knowing that the desert heat would dry everything. Unfortunately, my work shirts didn’t look clean, and in fact maybe looked worse than they did before going through the wash. I won’t do laundry there again.

After a hot and mostly sleepless night in the van, I went inside before 6am and paid $12 for a shower. After waiting no more than fifteen minutes, my shower customer number (69) was called, and the recorded computer man directed me to shower 2. For a moment I was confused because the door was closed, and I hadn’t been given a key. Then I realized that I had to enter the PIN on my receipt into the keypad next to the door. After putting in the code, the green light lit up, and I was in. Like the Love’s shower I reported on before, this one was impeccably clean. No mold. No mildew. No dirt. And the door had a deadbolt I secured from the inside.

Although I have no complaints about my shower at this Flying J, I won’t go out of my way to do it again.

Rubber Tramp Artist

One woman's stories, rants, and observations

Tag Archives: laundry

Lack of Linens

Another Adventure in Cleanliness