There were times I took two, even three showers in a single day. Since living on the bus, I am going two, even three days between showers. And if your bathroom looked like this, you, too, might be willing to pay $8 for a shower at a Busy Bee truck stop. I have been able to do that because of Jennifer Shore, who drove her truck into Interstate Truck and Tractor about 15 minutes after I limped my bus here.  In a matter of minutes, we were friends.

I’ve been here a long time now. She’s dropped by every few days as her loads bring her close. Sometimes she spends the night parked near me. Sometimes we go out to eat. Sometimes she brings me fudge. I’ll read her cards, make her charms and let my pendulum answer her questions. This visit, though, has been longer. She’s in the process of selling her truck and buying another. Someone was sure we had to have met ages ago because of how we interact. Someone else thought I was gay because, well, I guess they couldn’t imagine a lesbian and a heterosexual could be friends. 

I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with her today. It is the only one of my 97 days on the road (or in a garage parking lot) that I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with someone, let alone the same someone. After lunch came helping unload her truck; before dinner came a shower.

A long, hot shower where I wasn’t holding the shower head with one hand and trying to rinse shampoo out of my hair with the other, where half of the water was not spraying out where the hose meets the faucet, and where there was more space than what is to the left of my composting toilet. Not I’m not saying I didn’t like those showers, because I appreciated every one on my bus. With eight planets in water signs, including a Pisces sun and a Scorpio moon, and with a perfect grand trine in water, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I consider showers to be sacred. Today’s was in a space about half the square footage of my bus. (See more photos on Facebook.) It had been sprayed, wiped, swished and mopped after the last person used it. It was behind a door, under lights. Plus I was given as many towels to use as I wanted. I almost reached nirvana.