I mentioned yesterday that I am in the process of outfitting our trailer with pretty much the same stuff that people have in a house. That includes housework tools like brooms, dustpan, window cleaner, soft scrub, etc, as well as a host of stuff to keep the tanks sanitary and odorless. I stalled for a while, but yesterday ordered a small vacuum cleaner from CampingWorld. I also ordered one of those old wooden racks like your grandmother used to have to hang clothes on. We have two of them at home (because we're as old as your grandmother). They're great.

If you're a tent camper, which I still am at heart, vacuum cleaner and laundry rack don't immediately come to mind as camping supplies. And housework, other than shaking out your sleeping bag and a quick whisk boom to the tent floor, doesn't immediately come to mind when you envision living in a national park for a while. But we have a carpet in the trailer, so it will probably need to be vacuumed. We have one RV book that talks about vacuuming the window treatments and furniture, but I don't do that at home.

At home we have Vince, the cleaning company. After our trip to the beach was considering having Vince's crew clean the trailer instead of the house. It's an option, I guess, at least if the trailer is parked at home for a while. They can vacuum the window treatments.

Now here's a bigger question with philosophical implications: what about an iron? We're going to be gone for two months, after all, and might want a crisp shirt to wear to a nice restaurant. But I hate ironing, and one of my long-term retirement goals has been to live in jeans, sneakers, and a tee. One of the first things I did last November was to box up most of my business suits, uncomfortable shoes, and fragile blouses and donate them to charity. I had lots of clothes that I really loved, in a wide assortment of sizes. I kept just 2 suits, includig the one I want to be cremated in, about 30 years from now, and bought a new pair of black wool pants in my current size (smaller, for once), and a nice pair of low heeled shoes that while not stylish unless you're over 60, are comfortable enough that I can, about half of the time, walk in them without limping and whining about my back . Since then, I have basically lived in jeans.

Chico's has great jeans for old women, by the way. They are stylishly cut, come in lots of colors -some with embroidery. They come all the way up, and the tall sizes go all the way down (a big issue if you're as tall as I am). They have a little stretch but don't bag. And best of all, a size 1.5 or 2 fits! What an ego boost! Size 2. The marketing genius who came up with that one should get the Nobel Prize for humanitarianism.

Enough about fashion for senior citizens. Back to the iron problem. Should I take an iron? If I take an iron, should I take an ironing board? Let me know. I'm really stressing about this. A iron - I could be convinced. But an ironing board is somehow over the top as a camping supply. If you never iron because the dryer crisps everything nicely if you take it out right away, I don't need to hear from you. "Right away", like "is" can be a relative term.

Steve is worried about the weights of things (see yesterday's post). And an iron is heavy. And the board just wouldn't fit anywhere. We could fill the whole trailer with potato chips for what an iron weighs.