A lot of women that I talk to don't like camping, but it's
super fun. You just need to learn to plan
ahead a little bit. I'm Ronnie and you're listening
to Clean With Me, the podcast where I walk you through
cleaning your house step by step.
When you clean along with this show, you'll get more done in
less time so you can spend the rest of your day doing what
matters most to you. Thanks for joining me.
I am recording this on a phone in the truck at a campsite, so
please forgive me that it's not the usual sound quality, but I
think it'll be OK. Let's get right into the
episode. It's time to gear up for your
cleaning session. Maybe you need to freshen up for
the day a little bit, or slip into some slides or whatever
kind of shoes you like to clean in.
Or maybe you need to open your curtains and blinds and windows
and let some fresh air circulate.
Or if the weather doesn't permit or it's late at night and you
want to keep everything locked up, I understand.
Maybe you can get your house smelling good with a scented
candle, wax warmer, essential oil diffuser, whatever you like
to use. Another thing you could be doing
to help kick off this cleaning session is starting a load of
laundry. Maybe you have some clothes to
wash, or maybe you have a lot of laundry to wash and you need to
just get some towels and underwear in there and get those
going. Those essentials or somebody's
uniform, you could throw in there whatever needs to be
washed in a hurry or maybe you need to strip your bedding and
get some of that washing. I recently got a new, I would
say comforter. It's actually one of those duvet
inserts and I didn't get the duvet cover yet because they
were all out of it but I just got the Better Homes and Gardens
and this is not sponsored or anything I just thought it was a
good deal and practical. I got the Better Homes and
Gardens duvet insert at Walmart and they keep the duvet covers
right there but they were all out of the white king sized and
I insisted on everything being white.
Of course I already got chocolate on the insert, but
I'll fix it. But I was thinking about getting
a white comforter or even a duvet set on Amazon or
something. But I, I don't trust the reviews
'cause I know a lot of people get paid to write Amazon
reviews, even though they're verified purchasers, you know,
they're, they're biased in a lot of cases.
So I like to click on the negative reviews.
Even if it's like 4.8 or something, I like to click on
the negative reviews on those items and see what they said.
And it's like, oh, these are super flat.
They're flat as a pancake. They look nothing like the
picture, this and that. But if you buy a comforter or a
duvet insert in person, you know you know what you're getting.
And I'm not saying it's the fluffiest thing around, but I
knew what I was getting because I looked at it in the store and
it was affordable. So I got that duvet insert for
now, which we're using that as our comforter just by itself and
I'm going to get the the cover later.
I realize I could have ordered it off walmart.com, but
sometimes like just buying things with bursts and for a
change. But I also got a new set of
sheets and pillowcases and I already had multiple sets of
sheets, but I was kind of down to 1 comforter 'cause I'm always
like passing different comforters on to the kids or
they end up turning into camping comforters or whatever.
My point is, I think it's a great idea to have a complete
second seat, a complete second sheet set.
I guess that's a tongue twister and a complete second comforter.
OK, so that if you change your bedding late in the day, you can
still make the bed and you're not going to be irritated with
yourself when you try to go to bed and you've got to restart
the dryer three times to dry that comforter or something.
Speaking of bedding, you might want to just take a couple of
minutes to make your bed if you have not already done so.
So the camping trip tips I'm going to tell you in this
episode are probably so different than anyone else's
camping tips just 'cause I'm different, I guess.
Whenever I hear someone say they hate camping, a lot of times
it's it's someone who is a super glamorous type.
Their makeups always done, their hair is always curled, they're
always dressed real classy and everything.
And I often wonder, I wonder if it's because of the challenges
of looking good when camping. I wonder if that's why they
don't like it. When I was a teenager in high
school, there was a camping trip that was put on by our school.
It it wasn't just the usual summer camp per SE, but it was a
camping trip where the seniors got to be camp counselors to
some 7th graders. So I was in a little tent with
several 7th grade girls and I was a senior at the time and one
thing they were super surprised to find out was that I had
brought a butane curling iron. I graduated in 1990, so this
camping trip might have been in 1989.
And so you didn't want your bangs just completely flat.
Like at that point, I wasn't doing like the high hair or what
Nowadays they call it mall bangs.
Like in hindsight or something, my husband calls it high hair.
We weren't really doing that so much, but we were still curling
our bangs. And I can't remember if I bought
that curling iron specifically for that camping trip or if it
was so I could get ready in the car, but I used it for both.
So that was one way of making sure that I looked good tent
camping. And no, I'm not that super
glamorous type who always has a full face of makeup, but I do
care how I look camping. I'm not the other end of the
spectrum. You know when you go camping
with a group of people and the women are like, you put on
makeup or camping and they just purposely are looking real rough
or something. And no judgement here if you
don't ever wear makeup. I get that.
But I'm saying a lot of women who usually wear makeup will
kind of act like there's some kind of a rule when you're
camping that you don't put on makeup.
And maybe it's just that they're taking a break from it.
But I'm the type of person who always wears at least mascara
and these days some other things too.
And I'm talking even if I'm in a hospital bed or something.
I mean, I'm, I'm pretty sick. I'm pretty bad off if you don't
see any makeup on me in the hospital.
So yes, I do wear eye makeup camping.
And some of you might be thinking, well is it tent
camping or is it glamping? Definitely at my age I prefer
glamping. But as recently as how long ago
was it? It wasn't that long ago.
It was during the pandemic, so I'm going to say in either 2020
or 2021 we went tent camping. So it's not outside of the realm
of possibility for me to camp in a tent, but I do prefer camping
in an RV. And if you don't like tent
camping or and you don't have an RV, you could rent a cabin
somewhere and still kind of camp, so to speak.
OK, I gave you way too much time to make your bed.
It's now time to straighten up your front entrance area or your
front room. Just start at the front door and
start straightening up. Clear any clutter off the floor.
Straighten the couch cushions. Dust any surfaces that may need
it and while you're at it, gather any dishes from around
the house, like the mugs on the night stand.
I'll tell you how I got chocolate on that comforter and
it's I'm not proud of this, but I had left a mug there.
OK, you know, I'm always talking about mugs on the night stand.
And the chocolate syrup that I had put into my coffee kind of
settled to the bottom. So once the coffee was gone,
there was a little bit of chocolate down in the bottom.
Well, in the middle of the night, I pulled my plastic water
bottle out of that mug. Like I had set the water bottle
in the mug, pulled it out and gotten a drink.
And then the bottom of the water bottle had chocolate on it and
it ended up on my comforter and it was dark and I didn't realize
it was happening until the next morning.
Yes, I sprayed it with a pretreater, washed it right away
but you could still faintly see it.
But since it's white I'll just fix it with bleach.
I'll I'll have to figure out if if it's safe to bleach the whole
thing probably is and I'll probably risk it since I got it
at Walmart. I probably just need to wash
that that comforter insert again with some bleach.
But whenever something really isn't supposed to be bleached,
I've been known to spot treat it with like bleach and AQ tip or a
bleach pen. Anyway, that's another reason to
clear your night stand if you're accidentally going to set your
water bottle into a chocolatey mug.
Usually I drink out of a Tumblr on the night stand, but this was
just one of those times where I'd grabbed a disposable water
bottle. Just be straightening up your
front entrance and then gathering any dishes and taking
them to the sink area. And your front entrance might
also include a living area or two.
I did buy another butane curling iron years later as an adult.
I didn't like the new one as well.
It was one of those situations where they don't make them like
they used to. These days I have a small travel
travel trailer and I have a curling iron in one of the
drawers in the kitchen drawers. We don't have a lot of storage
in this travel trailer. We used to have a great big one
that was like 27 feet long or so, and then we got a cab over
camper and long story. But now we've got a very small
travel trailer that's like an 18 footer, but it does sleep 5
people. It's lacking in storage, though,
so there's a curling iron in one of the drawers, kitchen drawers.
But what my husband and I are talking about doing, there is
kind of a ledge above the microwave slash convection oven.
There is a ledge up above there and we like to put things up
there, but some of it slides off while we're driving.
So we're thinking about adding something around that, some kind
of a net or a little ledge or something to keep things from
sliding off. So that's something that we're
working on is just some storage solutions.
But at the same time, we also just realized that there was a
lot of storage space under the bottom bunk.
So it's one of those things where you've got to take the
thing out a couple times and realize like what modifications
you want to make or what you want to bring next time, stuff
like that. But while we're talking a little
bit about tent camping, where you would use a butane curling
iron if curling your hair is a must, another thing that's kind
of a must with tent tent camping is just bringing some wipes,
whether it's official makeup removing wipes or just baby
wipes, especially if you're camping with a group of people.
If it's just your family, you might not really care how you
look when you first emerge from the tent.
But a lot of times it's fun to go camping with other families
and you want to look presentable when you emerge.
So you definitely want to have a mirror in there.
You want to have a spray bottle possibly for you know, getting
rid of that bed head, a wipe for removing your makeup so you can
quickly wash your face and reapply your makeup.
If you have long hair you could sleep in a braid or something.
My hair is just barely past shoulder length, so I'm team
spray bottle these days. My hair gets kind of flat just
on the back on one side. So I just in the mornings when
I'm getting ready, if it's not a morning where I'm jumping into
the shower, I just kind of, you know, I'm talking about even at
home, I'll just spray the back of my hair and then brush it and
I'll be good as new. Even at home, I like makeup
removing wipes. Sometimes I go through a phase
where I keep them on the night stand because you know, you're
we're watching TV late at night. I don't always feel like getting
up to wash my face before bed, and sometimes I'll just quickly
remove my makeup with a makeup removing wipe.
Hopefully by now you've straightened up your front
entrance. It's time to head to the
kitchen, and you probably gathered up the cups already or
whatever else was around your house that needed to go to the
sink area. Go ahead and get started on your
dishes, whatever that means for you.
Maybe you need to empty your dishwasher so that you can pre
rinse some stuff and reload it. Or maybe you need to empty your
drying rack. Or if you're like me, you might
use a drying rack and a dishwasher and need to empty
both. If you're new to the show, I am
really big on emptying your drying rack and dishwasher first
thing in the morning, like when you go in to make your tea or
coffee or get your juice, whatever you do when you first
go to the kitchen in the morning.
That way it kind of sets the stage for keeping up on dishes
throughout the day. If there's just something about
keeping your drying rack and or starting with an empty drying
rack and dishwasher at the beginning of the day, that sets
you up for success. But no judgement here.
If you've got dirty dishes to wash and clean, ones to put
away, and you've got to put away the clean stuff and then wash
The Dirty stuff, just don't be tempted to add to that pile in
your drying rack and play dish Jenga with this huge stack.
It's going to make your kitchen look cluttered and you're not
going to wash your dishes as fast if you're hand washing some
of them or all of them when you kind of don't know where to put
them and you have to think too hard.
I like to just start placing them into an empty drying rack
as I wash them. I usually get any difficult
items, washings like pots and pans with dried on food, I'll
get or get them soaking rather. And then I'll do a quick empty
reload and run of the dishwasher.
And then once that's running I'll hand wash anything that
didn't fit into the dishwasher. And then lastly I'll scrub and
wash those pots that needed a little time to soak.
You don't want to get into a cycle of leaving things to soak
overnight. Once in a while something really
needs that, but not all the time.
Sometimes just a little bit of soaking while you wash the other
stuff is really all you need. So don't, don't lie to yourself
about that. Just be working on dishes,
whatever that involves. And of course, if you're ahead
of the game and you don't have any dishes to wash, be cleaning
the surfaces in your kitchen from the top down.
And there are plenty of deep cleaning tasks you could work on
as well, like cleaning out your refrigerator, microwave,
whatever. But a lot of you have dishes to
do. The rest of you can be doing
other cleaning tasks in the kitchen.
But yeah, if your fear is looking rough when you emerge
from the tent, make sure you've got a mirror, a water spray
bottle brush, hair ties, makeup removing wipes, and of course
your makeup. And for camping I always bring
some type of makeup that has a built in mineral sunscreen.
I use that a lot of the time anyway, but especially when I'm
going to be outside a lot. And for tick camping you do have
to time it correctly. Check the forecast and also
don't count on blow up mattresses because they almost
always leak. And don't expect to be
comfortable sleeping on just a sleeping bag on the floor of the
tent. You've got to bring some kind of
padding, whether it's a couple extra comforters or better yet,
like one of those egg crate things, those spongy things that
you can use like on top of your mattress at home or whatever.
Bringing one of those to go in the bottom of the tent under the
sleeping bags is a must. Not when you're a teenager and
you're in there with some 7th graders or something, but when
you're an adult, you don't want to be sleeping on the ground.
When you're a kid, you're probably OK with roughing it
like that. And yes, tents have like these
little covers that go over the top for when it rains, but you
don't want it to rain when you're in a tent.
Anything more than just a light sprinkling it's it's going to be
a problem. One time we went camping and it
started to rain after a couple days.
But my husband's cousin who lived in the area had brought
his tent trailer to join us for a day or so and go fishing, and
so he left his tent trailer there for us.
So on the last night, we were able to move into that tent
trailer rather than spend another night in the tent once
it started to rain. So rain, snow, those can
definitely be a problem. And being too hot can also be a
problem in a tent. So you know, you're going to
want to probably have some way to have a fan in there if it's a
little warm, If it's a little cold, you got to make sure that
you're able to keep warm enough. And checking the forecast is
crucial. An alternative to butane curling
iron, and this is probably more for people with bangs because
even when you have bangs that you wear relatively straight,
you need to kind of shape them. And so if you are in a situation
where you're not going to have power or whatever, just get a
large curler, like an old school curler like this little prickly
ones and just or even a large sponge roller.
But that kind of leaves the line.
I'm usually just the ones that are kind of prickly, like your
hair kind of holds it in place. And in the old days they would
stick those little plastic pins and do it.
But I just use the curler itself.
I get my bangs a little bit damp.
And I'm talking about situations where I don't really have power.
I've been known to do this like in the truck when we're driving
somewhere kind of far where I'll just use that one curler just to
shape my bangs. And yeah, I don't do it very
often because my hair dries super fast, especially my bangs.
So even if I take a shower, like my bangs are dry soon enough for
me to shape them with like a giant curling iron at home
before I leave. But if I were tent camping for a
few days or something and did not have a butane curling iron,
I would bring just one big curler and a spray bottle and I
could shape my bangs that way. Like you basically spray your
bangs a little bit, put that curler in, and then do something
else like your makeup while your bangs are drying.
So just a little tip there. I talked about rain.
Another important thing to think about.
This is actually a lesson that I learned recently and I was not
even camping when I learned this lesson, but a lot of tennis
shoes or athletic shoes whatever you call them, have kind of a
mesh instead of being mainly leather and water resistant.
It can be a nightmare if your shoes and socks get wet.
This actually happened to me at Disneyland recently.
My I went to Disneyland with my mom and sister and I was kind of
the idiot that wore mesh shoes and there was a forecast that it
was going to rain. So I should have worn different
shoes, but I was trying to pick my most comfortable walking
shoes, and I didn't think that it was actually going to be
raining while we were there and that there would be some
standing water deep enough to get my shoes and socks wet.
But there was. But I remember another time when
my husband and I went camping at this place in Texas called Joe
Pool Lake, where it was just muddy everywhere.
It wasn't raining, but I guess it had recently rained and it
was super muddy. So it was a good thing that my
shoes were water resistant on that camping triplets put it
that way. And my kids shoes got pretty
messed up. But always bring at least two
pairs of shoes camping. There's just a high probability
that you're going to get your shoes wet even if it doesn't
rain, just from hiking around and bodies of water and whatnot.
So never go camping with just the shoes that are on your feet.
Bring a second pair and a lot of times when you go camping,
you're by a river and it's good to have some shoes that you can
wear in the water, like water shoes or jellies or just
something that you can walk around like part way in the
water in. So just a thought there.
The only time I've ever stayed in a cabin camping was a summer
camp I went to as a teenager. However, I do know people who
every time they go camping they stay in a cabin.
So they're avoiding that whole roughing it scenario like
they've got indoor plumbing, a bathroom and whatever.
If your dishes are done, be sure to wipe down your upper
cabinets, the fronts of your large appliances like your
microwave, your dishwasher, your oven, your refrigerator.
Another thing I wanted to say about camping is always have a
way to cook. I don't care if your tent
camping or you're in an RV, you're going to want to cook.
One time we went camping with a group of people and my husband
and I made something really good.
I don't even really remember what it was, but we definitely
cook when we're camping and it's a huge part of the experience.
Everything tastes better when you're camping.
You're super hungry when you're camping, and I remember this
other family that was on the camping trip pulled out some
cold hot dogs and just slices of white bread to wrap around those
cold hot dogs. And so we were offering him some
of our food. It was kind of awkward.
So if you're new to camping, you need a way to cook.
Sometimes there are little, you know, barbecue areas where
there's like a little grid thing over a fire pit or whatever.
But I recommend having a little Coleman stove or something if
you're tent camping. That's what I grew up with.
My husband has one. It's a thing.
You might need to get a little Coleman stove if you're going to
do any tent camping. And some of you are like, what?
I know how to camp, but I'm kind of gearing some of this to
people who haven't camped in a while or who are new to camping
because I also know some people who had never been camping until
they were like over 30 years old.
And of course, you need to dress warm, warmer than you normally
do because you're outside a lot more.
So make sure you dress warm and you're not automatically going
to be able to have a fire. A lot of times it's not allowed.
We're camping at a place where this whole town almost burned
down recently. So they're they're pretty picky
about fires and there are no fire pits in this place.
In fact, this place that we're staying at is technically an RV
park. But when you're in the
mountains, it's a beautiful camping experience, even if the
place is not officially called a campground.
But this place does have restrooms with showers and
things like that. We do have everything we need in
the trailer. Our, our travel trailer is kind
of an optical illusion because it looks really small and
they're thinking like there's no way all 5 of you are sleeping in
there. And admittedly, it probably
better suited for four people. We are squeezing in a little
bit. But it does have a bathroom.
It's got a toilet. It's got a shower.
Basically when you're in the bathroom, like the toilet stall
is the shower. Like there's a toilet, a sink
and then a shower head and a shower curtain and a door.
So basically when you're taking a shower, you shut the toilet
lid and you know, basically the the toilet is inside of the
shower. If you've ever been in an RV,
you know what I'm talking about. A lot of the bathrooms are that
way, but this place does have facilities.
It also has full hookups. So if you're new to RV ING or
you're considering getting an RV and you don't know how this
works, you have a water tank and obviously there's a limited
amount of water. And then you also have a sewage
tank, which has a limited amount of space in it.
So if you're boondocking, that's the term for camping somewhere
where you're not hooked up to power and water and sewage
drainage, then you're kind of limited as far as, you know, how
much those tanks will hold. And you know, maybe not
everybody can take a shower and things like that, but a lot of
these places have what's called full hookup.
So you have unlimited fresh water, you have unlimited sewage
because it's draining into their sewer system, and then you have
electricity because you're plugged in.
And that's the kind of place that we usually stay at.
We're at a full hookup place. But that time in like 2020 or
2021 where we went tent camping, we were at a place that had
restrooms, but we had to kind of drive to them.
But we also have this little miniature tent that's like a
bathroom. OK, so for which obviously we're
probably not going to use that again for a long time, if at
all, because now we have an RV. But when we did not have an RV,
the way I like to tent camp is we would set up this other
bathroom tent and this little portable toilet that's basically
a bucket with a seat. You line it with like a bag and
it has a seat on it just to avoid TMI.
Like basically you just go number one in that one.
It's so that you could get up in the middle of the night to go to
the bathroom or go just before, you know, basically pee just
before bed or you know, when you first, you know, get up or in
the middle of the night or whatever without like walking to
the campground restroom where you would take care of other
business, so to speak. Because you kind of don't want
to use your porta potty for something because obviously
you're going to have to dispose of that later, if that makes
sense. But I do recommend that for tent
camping if you're not super close to a restroom, of course,
you're going to carry a flashlight for walking to the
bathroom and whatnot. So that might be an option, but
in some situations it can be convenient to have a portable
toilet, especially if you have small children that you're potty
training and or they have to go to the bathroom at the drop of a
hat or you have to go to the bathroom at the drop of a hat.
That's why I said camping tips for women because men don't need
that just to pee the pee in the woods or whatever.
OK, and women can too if needed, but when it's super dark and
it's late at night, it could be kind of creepy unless you're
walking a dog. That makes it a little bit
better. OK, which brings me to my next
point. You need to bring little plastic
bags for picking up after your dog when you're camping if you
bring dogs. We do bring our dogs.
We have stay at home pets, but our two dogs have to go with us.
The lower maintenance pets can stay home.
Our chickens probably love it when we go camping because we
have a chicken coop in our backyard and it has like a
little run, a chicken run. So the coop part is like the
little house where they go in to keep warm and they lay the eggs
and huddle in a little building at night.
But they have a little yard too, that's enclosed where they go
out and they're kind of semi free ranging, right?
They're eating bugs, they're getting sunshine, exercise, all
the things. But if you've ever had chickens,
you know that they will eat up all the plants, all the weeds,
and there won't be any sign of greenery in their run.
So from time to time we let them out, but our dogs will chase
them. So it's kind of a thing where,
OK, nobody let the dogs out. We have the chickens out right
now and it can be kind of stressful because somebody might
forget and let or not hear about it or whatever.
Open one of the sliding glass doors and let one of the dogs
out and it's like, Oh no, you know, she's chasing the chickens
or whatever. So we don't like to have to go
through that. So a lot of times when we're
going to be gone somewhere and we take our dogs with us, we
will open up the chicken coop door and let the chickens out of
the run. And then they get to free range
all around the yard and, you know, eat weeds and grass and
whatever, find more bugs, whatever they do.
OK, Hopefully by now you're wiping down your countertop,
stove top, cleaning out your sink if you haven't already done
so. And then, of course, after that,
you're going to move down to your lower cabinets.
And then you're going to end by sweeping and mopping your
kitchen floor. By the way, if you want to get
your whole house clean, we have lots of bonus episodes where you
clean your entire house. Special special thanks to those
who are already supporting the show, which unlocks those bonus
episodes. And you can unlock those
episodes by supporting us on Apple Podcasts, Patreon,
Spotify, which is kind of integrated with Patreon and
Spreaker Supporter Club. That's yet another option.
There'll be links in the episode notes or a link I'm camping, so
I might just put one link, but there'll be at least one link in
the episode notes to my website and that'll tell you how to
subscribe to bonus content if it's not already being
advertised to you on whichever app you're listening on.
Those episodes are called Clean with Me Unplugged, and yeah,
they tend to be longer episodes where you'll clean your whole
house. Other things to think about when
camping are mosquito repellent, sunblock, You're going to want
to create a camping friendly menu.
What we try to do is cook a lot of the same foods each time we
go camping. That way we just kind of
routinely know which ingredients to buy.
Like there's going to be bacon and eggs.
Often there's going to be Stew. We had Stew tonight.
It was kind of funny because my 18 year old son was like,
where's the special bread? Because when I make beef Stew, I
make homemade French bread, or at least some kind of homemade
bread if it's not the French bread.
So I was happy that he loves my fresh bread.
But I had to offer him crackers. We did saltines to keep it
simple 'cause I don't have a lot of experience with the type of
oven we have. It's a microwave if you use the
microwave settings, but it also has this little metal rack that
you keep in it when you're doing the convection stuff.
But I don't really know how to do stuff in a convection oven.
But when we had our bigger RV that had a regular oven, what I
would do for bread for the Stew night, I would buy some frozen
dinner rolls and just pop those in the oven.
And then you have that whole fresh hot bread experience.
But for the most part, when you're camping, you want to make
things that you can cook on the stove, like if you have your
little Coleman camp stove that you're placing on a picnic table
at the campsite where your tent camping, or you have an RV where
you don't really want to experiment with a convection
oven. OK.
And you're, you're just comfortable with using the gas
stove. You know, things that you fry up
or boil on the stove are practical.
So keep things practical. And if you don't have an amazing
husband who tends to just do all the dishes when you're camping,
you might want to bring paper products.
We tend to bring the disposable stuff when we are camping with a
large group and like we're cooking for a bunch of people or
something, then we're going to bring paper plates, bowls,
silverware. But for just our little group of
five, we are just doing dishes. And obviously the disposable
stuff makes more sense when your tent camping then you only just
have a few pans and spatulas and things to wash.
But when you have an RV, it's not a big deal to also wash your
bowls and spoons and plates because you have the sink.
But camping can definitely save you money, especially if you
just go camping in your own region.
Here's another tip. If you're using a heater that
depends on propane and there's a chance that you could run out of
propane or even the. Even if you don't think you're
going to run out of propane, it's good to have a space heater
as a backup plan because those of us who camp in RV's are not
as worried about the forecast because we have heating and air
conditioning. But you still just want to be
prepared, you know, have a fan, have a space heater in case
something goes wrong. I hope you got a lot done during
this episode and maybe some of my camping tips will help you.
Hay cleaning and I'll talk to you soon.