TR SNIPPET LAUNDRY

Many of you know that I go from hotel deal to hotel deal for as long as 26 days on my Vegas visits.  I can’t pack laundry for that entire period.  I try to wash a few pieces every time I start my stay in a different casino.  That way the pieces have time to dry before I move on.  This trip I just procrastinated until I had no clothes left and then I did not get my usual early check in, but had to wait for regular check in and take a nap to be fresh for BoysIIMen concert.  Laundry did not get done until the following morning.

I wash the clothes a few pieces at a time in the sink in hot water, soaping them a bar of Fels Naptha that I bought at Walmart for a dollar. 
http://www.mnn.com/your-home/at-home/blogs/back-to-basics-fels-naptha
I like it better than any liquid soap I have tried.  I hate having liquid in my suitcase.  This is easy to pack, really soaps up, seems to rinse easily,  and lasts a long while.

The soap is pretty strong, so I work with gloves.  First I rub the soap into the places where there may be stains.  It does a good job on stains.  Then I squeeze each piece over and over and get the soap working through all the material.  It goes back in the sink and after the first piece that sink water is full of soap as well. 

I wring out each piece and toss it in a filling bathtub for rinsing if there is one in the hotel.  Then I step in the bathwater and adgitate with my legs and feet getting all the soap out.  I might rinse some pieces again in the shower water.  Working naked is easier for me than reaching and trying not to get wet.  I get wet and when the clothes are all done I take a shower.  It can get hot and humid if many clothes need washing.

I dry some in the window with plastic hangers I have packed.  The hotel hangers cannot be hung on anything but the metal sliding mechanism in the closet and it is not the best place to dry heavy things and won’t accommodate a huge washing load.  I dry what I intend to use next in the window where the day’s sun will get it.  Jeans I take to the pool with me and put them out on a chair in the sun.  Otherwise they take forever to dry.  My light shirts dry in the closet in 12 hours.  Heavier things take longer.

I learned one very important tip this trip.  Don’t wash all your underwear.  Keep one pair to wear while the others dry.  I brought some heavy weight boxers and a few light weight boxers.  Next year I will bring all light weight boxers that dry more quickly.  And next year I will bring the socks I found in Walmart that make walking easier and wash and dry faster than my cotton socks.

Washing naked tempted me into washing all my underwear including what I had only worn for breakfast.  This was a huge mistake.  When it was time to go to the Polynesian Festival (add link) I had no underwear.   There I was, perhaps doomed to become Kramer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCt3Tjpfaro
Only I did not want to be unfettered and free.
So I looked for a substitute.
 I did have unworn lightweight  print pajama bottoms in blue that were decorated in fishing flies, so I put them on under my jeans as underwear.

They did not show at my ankles.  Well… not for a while anyway. 

It was not until later that I found out I had visited the Polynesian outdoor festival, (include link) including I suppose my poor attempts to learn the hula, with jeans that had a flare out the legs of blue material decorated with fishing flies.  I wondered why one vendor asked me if I were an artist.  I looked very different.  It was unusual.  The flare looked as if it were sewn on purpose into the cuffs of the pant legs  Perhaps I have started an entire new fashion trend in Hawaii.  Here are the photos of my feet.

 

 

 

Well, better to be colorful than Kramer.