At Joel's suggestion, I'm posting further information about
my solar shower for those who may be interested (trip or
otherwise).

It retails for about $15, and is 5 gallons in capacity.  It's
available from
Basic Designs Inc.
P.O. Box 2507
Santa Rosa, CA  95405
707.575.1220
fax:  707.578.0378
(they accept credit card orders via phone)

They also offer several other interesting products, such as
a solar AA battery recharger (takes 4 batteries 10-14
hours approximately), and this power shower pump which plugs
into the cigarette lighter, so that your shower will flow
for you even if there is no space overhead to hang the 5
gallon bag (the more expensive $30 10 gallon bag is too heavy to hang, but can 
lie flat in the luggage rack, etc.

The 2nd "toy" is really a kitchen-type item, useful not only
for vw or westy owners, but any breed, and even if you don't
camp.  It's called the "Stove To Go," a sort of electric hot
lunch box (which looks exactly like the old-fashioned black
lunch boxes).  It plugs in to either your cig liter
or household current, and comes with both cords.  A 20'
extension cord for the DC is available for an additional $20 I think
should you choose to cook far from your DC connection.  It
is thermostatically controlled at 300F (set at factory), and will
cook rice in about 30 minutes plugged into your dash.  Brick
tour people - you ought to be doing cartwheels, as this
means we don't have to stop to cook dinner and can do more
sightseeing and sidetrips!  Anyway, truckers apparently use it
commonly to cook a roast - throwing in all the stuff at the 
beginning of their trip, and having something that melts in
your mouth like butter 3 or 4 hours later.  You can heat 
canned things (advise puncturing top to let pressure escape)
or soup, or sandwiches, or frozen foods, or put in your 
favorite hotdogs, BBQ sauce, whatever.  The superneato part
is that it can be used with those disposable oven roasting
bags, so nothing needs to be cleaned after use, and the
bags will stow neatly in your westy fridges/coolers w/o 
taking up a lot of space like a traditional storage 
container.  It retails for $40.

For stat freaks (ha!), here's the scoop:
120V/12V, 60hz, 125W, patent pending, tested to UL std 1026,
made in the USA.  Now that I look at it to type these specs,
it is, BTW, a little bigger than the traditional old black
lunch box.  To test, I filled it with water, and it held 8
cups in the bottom half, which is where the heating occurs (in
the middle of the bottom) - a sort of crock pot on wheels :)
It is warranted for 6 months by the manufacturer, Max
Burton (address to follow).  I'm not going to say that it
is totally "leak-proof," so don't plan on heating boullion
and making sharp turns (especially not to the left!).  Anyway,
Joel gave me a quickie correspondance course in modern electricity,
so for those of you concerned about what this will do to
your car batteries, take heed:

(Joel wrote) amps = watts / volts. always.
so 125 watts divided by 12 volts (well ... almost) => 10.4 amps.   and
now as long as you don't run it for a long time, you'll
be ok. but don't start that thing up and go off and forget it. but it won't
run the battery down toooo much. :) that's about as much as two driving
lights.

Anyway, personally, I'd confine my cooking to active driving 
times, and not risk running down the battery by cooking while
parked.

Max Burton
502 Puyallup Ave.
Tacoma, WA  98421
206.627.2665
(credit card orders accepted via phone)

Both businesses will ship these items to you UPS.

Happy cooking and showering....

/Martha Rubin
nrubin@s1.csuhayward.edu
'79 bug 'vert, '81 westy,
previously owned:  '78 rabbit, '63 1500 (notchback)