Taking A Shower On The Road

Ooohps Not shorts But showers

Another factor that I had not planned on is that in the training phase (for me 250 drive hours) where your trainer earns extra. $$ for miles you drive his motivation is to team drive and keep the wheels turning. Many times I will wake up in a rest area, get dressed and brush me teeth and wash my face in the rest room. Then pre trip and get rolling .

"Scheduled" showers?

Yeah,lol. However you want to schedule them. ☺ Once you get on the road, you will develop a system that works best for you. Your "mornings" may be at midnight, 10pm, 2am, or noon. It depends on the load you are carrying, your timeline to get there, and your HOS.

I can only give you advice from my experience being in the Army / deployed for a year. Wash the important parts when you can't get a full shower. Face, neck, pits, crotch and feet. That will at least keep you from smelling / feeling funky should you need to go a day or more without showering. Keep a couple of gallon water jugs and bulk bag of microfiber cloths with you so that you can at least make that happen in a restroom or anywhere.

We are not driving but I have been investigating all this too. I found where you can get a pump that has a shower nozzle that you can run through a bucket. I know it may be a cold shower but I had thought about getting one of those, heating some water in the microwave HOT, You cannot run hot hot thru it anyway. And then if I could get enough to wash my hair I would be good. You can get water any where and then if you had to park at a rest stop or somewhere without showers, then at least you can wash. Also could heat water to do a sponge bath. These would only be those extreme days when I had to get a shower when one not available.. Just a thought

RV, a great deal of this is going to depend on how you spend your 10 hour breaks.

Will you always park at a truck stop where there are showers available, or will you run hardcore to maximize your earning potential, and park accordingly? If you park at shipper and receivers, rest areas, exit ramps, or any place the truck will fit, you won't be able to get a shower during those 10 hour breaks, but your paycheck will be more.

Another question is, will you sleep roughly the same time every day, or will you sleep during the day some days, and at night some days. If you maximize your earning potential, you will sleep whenever and wherever the load assignment dictates. Doing this could get you one or two extra loads for the week, and increase your paycheck several hundred dollars.

If getting a shower and eating at a restaurant every single day is a priority, it is likely going to cost you some money, because you will be turning down loads that won't allow you to get to a truck stop before your clock expires.

Personally, I don't sleep at all times day or night, because I feel it leads to unsafe driving for me. However, some folks need way less sleep than others, so that is a personal call.

Also, I like to start driving around 2am, which has my clock expiring around 3 or 4pm when the truck stops start filling up. This usually guarantees me a spot at the truck stop I choose, which puts me in a position to park in a company approved spot, get something to eat, and get a shower if I have a free one on my rewards card.

Having a driver manager who is easy to work with, and knows how you like to run, will work with the load planners to get you the loads that allow you to run the way you prefer. If I turn down a load, my driver manager usually always has several to choose from.

Personally, I usually shower every 2 or 3 days, unless I know for certain I am going to run into the Swedish bikini team. If I showered every single day, I would feel like I was spending too much of my 10 hour breaks with showering activity. I can understand though that most females have higher standards for personal hygiene than some men.

I first learned how to skip showers when I rode with a motorcycle club. We would take off and stay gone several days, and sleep where we landed, sometimes on the ground or at another MC's clubhouse. We rarely rented a motel room, so I got accustomed to living for several days like a cowboy in the old west.

When you hear truckers talk about driving a truck OTR being a "lifestyle, it's because we don't live our lives everyday the way most people live. With a little experimentation, you can discover that there are a LOT of things you can do without, except food and water.

Bravo Dutch Well stated

Well, I do plan on getting a local job. But I'll have to start at the bottom at first. Money is nice, but I also value other things, such as feeling comfortable in my own skin. I will do my very best to plan my trips. I do not need 10 hours to sleep. I need 7-8. So the other two hours, I will eat (not in restaurants....I also plan to have my own healthy food in the truck) and keeps myself clean. If that means that sometimes I do not have access to a shower, I will find my way to a sink to wash my hair, and I will have supplies to wash myself in the truck. :)

I can agree with the need to shower. I might not get to everyday simply because I do tend to maximize my hours and the planners know this and set my runs accordingly. But I never go more than 1 day without a shower unless I'm going home. Like for instance today is normally a shower night but I pushed myself a little farther than I normally would have to set myself up to get home tomorrow. So I have myself a trucker bath that consists of baby wipes, hit the important spots and I'm good to go til I get home tomorrow.

Well, I do plan on getting a local job. But I'll have to start at the bottom at first. Money is nice, but I also value other things, such as feeling comfortable in my own skin. I will do my very best to plan my trips. I do not need 10 hours to sleep. I need 7-8. So the other two hours, I will eat (not in restaurants....I also plan to have my own healthy food in the truck) and keeps myself clean. If that means that sometimes I do not have access to a shower, I will find my way to a sink to wash my hair, and I will have supplies to wash myself in the truck. :)

They have mini propane water heaters for like $100 you could set up in your truck. I don't know how mechanically inclined you are but i might do it myself. You get those little $5 camper propane bottles from walmart that hooks up to the heater. Then you get a small 12v pump and container to hold the water in. Get another 5 gallon tote and stand in that to shower yourself to catch all the water. When you are done just pour the water outside. Sounds complicated but it's not. So for about $200 you can have a shower setup in your truck.

Depending on how I run (being I use "paper logs," and the "math" involved when using paper logs) I might be too tired to use a shower, even if I am at a truck stop.

However, I try to shower whenever I can, and I go no more than three days without a shower.

Dave