Virtual Cleanliness

What is clean? John and I have been wrestling with that question for the last twelve days. Twelve days since our last load of clean laundry and five since our last shower, and that one was purely by accident.

"It's all relative," John said. He pulled a pair of shorts from the laundry pile. "This are clean, compared to..." He pointed to the pair he had on, "these. Besides," he went on, "they're all going on five-day old bodies anyway." His sarcasm was making it obvious that finding a laundry machine was becomming a priority.

But laundry facilities are few and far between in Norway. "Don't have any machines here," the man at the camping kiosk told me today. "Next ones are 160 kilometers north in Svolvaer." It's been the same story everywhere we've gone. We did find coin machines on Vaeroy but we couldn't use them. "We close at 8:00," the man behind the counter said.

"But it's only 6:15 now." "Yeap, and the clothes won't finish in time. You can use the machine tomorrow."

When we do find a machine we usually find we have to put our day on hold to use it. Back in Olden that was the case. Laundry chores tied us up for over five hours. "The owner won't be back until 4:00," we were told. "And he's the only one with the laundry room key." So we waited. A one hour wash cycle and a one hour dry and before we knew it, it was dinner time.

Shower facilities aren't numerous here either. We wash in our van. We heat water on the stove and pour it over washclothes. It's far from ideal. Occasionally though, we've been lucky enough to experience the joy of a real shower. The last time it happened we were on the island of Rost. We chanced upon the Rorbu Camp. No one seemed to be home but the door was open and the shower was just down the hall. We hesitiated for only a moment then desided that desperate times deserve deserve measures. But five days have passed since that shower. We are back once again to redefining the word clean.