Keeping our clothes wefweshed

When we are two months in between showers and washing machines how do we keep our clothes (to quote Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles) "wefweshed?"

Using the sun, that's how.

Remember clotheslines?  I do.  When I was a child all homes had them, and I can still picture my mother hanging clothes on ours.  It was such fun to run beneath and around the sheets that were blowing in the wind. Now almost everyone uses dryers.

What we discovered, though, quite by accident, is that hanging out clothes in the sun does more than dry them.  It wefweshes them.  Rids the clothes of odors.  

Every day our camper looks like this. 

We put everything we wear into the sun, and as a result can wear clothes many more days than we can at home where we have a washer and a dryer.  This makes a huge difference because we try to limit our use of water to about a gallon and a half per day between the two of us--and 95% of that for drinking.

In other words, between the two of us we use approximately the equivalent of a single toilet flush by one person each day for all of our water needs.  Since we are in Southern California where there is a water shortage, we have difficulty finding water at times.  Keeping our usage low allows us to be out in wilderness areas for extended periods of time.  

Because of our two solar panels, we use the sun for all of our electrical needs, and now we find we can also use the sun to greatly expand our water capacity. 

Necessity is the mother of inwention.