I gotta admit, my life on the road right now is not what it looks like on my Instagram feed. Shocking, I know. For example, I considered calling this post, “My Day with a Urine Hat.”
Part of our annual trip through Texas is seeing our doctors in Houston, which is stressful in the best circumstances. You’ve got to get all cleaned up (not easy when you’ve been boondocking), find clean clothes that look normal (not stained hiking pants, which is basically all I own), and be prepared to small-talk with medical staff about your alternative lifestyle, all while trying to maintain enough respectability that you’re not treated like a homeless person. Because, really, that’s what all evidence points to.
But when you have any niggling questions about test results, things get weirder. (This has happened with us basically every year we’ve been on the road.) This year, I had to ride my bike to get enough cell signal to talk with doctors (oh so sophisticated), and we had to scramble to change camping plans for more tests.
Then comes the kicker. Amid all this time we’ve had to spend sitting in the danged trailer on the beach because of bad weather, we finally had a sunny day. Yippee! Time to hike and kayak, right? No, I had to spend the day near the trailer peeing in a hat.
Smaller than a Phone Booth
Which I’m good at, because I have experience in hat-peeing! I helped my late niece, Katherine, deal with 24-hour urine collection years ago, so I know all about pee hats. Problem is my bathroom in the trailer is way smaller than a bathroom in a hospital.
(What is a pee hat? It’s a plastic thing shaped like a Stetson that you turn upside down, place on the open toilet seat, and, duh, pee into. Then you pour your very own lovely pee into your master pee canister, which you take to Labcorp. Sexy!)
My point is, while I would have liked to have been kayaking the waterways along Galveston Island State Park, I was in my tiny bathroom trying not to kick over my pee canister, trying not to use a ton of water rinsing my pee hat after each use, and trying not to gross Tracy out with ye infamous hat drying precariously in the bathroom sink (that’s smaller than a Stetson). These things do not make good Instagram content.
What does look okay are pics from our day walking around Galveston after I dropped off my pee.
Historic Galveston
I’ve used up my blogging space today writing about pee (I am loving using that word) so I’m not going to go on and on about Galveston. My initial impression is it’s like New Orleans’s cousin, but with oil rigs and beach tourists.
We walked through the east end neighborhood, with paper maps in our hands, reading about old homes and the moneyed people who built them.
What we found super charming are wooden yard statues. After Hurricane Ike in 2008, Galvestonians transformed the dead tree trunks in their yards into art. Some went with the island wildlife theme while other statues are just weird. I wonder if that one homeowner regrets the geisha?
I needed a treat after the pee hat day, so we ate gumbo and po boys and soft shelled crabs and beignets and, my god, proper Southern iced tea.
I was celebrating the ability to pee any damned where I want.
‘My Day With a Urine Hat’ was bound to garner more readers… but for now you’ll just have to make do with me.
Love the dead tree sculptures, that’s a wonderful idea. And I think gumbo and beignets are a fitting reward for the contortions you endured in that tiny bathroom….
😉
I think I’d rather not get readers interested in my urine hat, frankly! I’m honored to have you, though. Gumbo and beignets were wonderful.
We had Cajun neighbors when we lived in NC, they taught me how to make chicken and sausage gumbo. We love it…
Sounds like your neighbors left you with a lasting gift. My problem with gumbo is okra. I pick it out, but okra really makes gumbo what it is. Plus, that’s no way to dig into a steamy bowl.
At least the urine hat eliminates the need to hold a cup between your legs to “catch the stream” with no hope of avoiding peeing on your hand.
We have a dear friend in Puerto Rico who uses “peepee room” for “bathroom” so now when one of us needs to excuse ourselves to attend to that need, we are “going to the peepee room!”
I am smiling thinking of you and Dave saying, “peepee room” all the time. How have I missed this in person? Another reason for me to get back to visit.