Zodi Extreme

Once upon a time I got a Zodi propane shower. It was a wondrous object: all you needed was a bucket of water, a small propane canister, and 4 D batteries and in ten minutes you have a piping hot shower no matter where you were (memories of 2007 - Roo and I were at DVE on our own, trying to do all four days and I have NEVER been so tired in my life. But taking that hot shower in the back of the dark trailer on a 20° night was sheer bliss).

Admittedly, the propane shower didn't get used much. Most of the time you'd be too exhausted after an endurance ride to do more than poke half-heartedly at yourself with a babywipe [or "Babies Wiped", as one iPhone post translated it to] - afterall, you'd be home in 24 hours and could surely remain grubby for that long. It's not like the horse cares.

It also transpired that many times you'd fiddle around and set it up, only to find that the battery pack had stopped working, or the pump was stuck.

Finally during this last trip to Moab, the pump seized up solid and despite prodding and dismantling, it refused to play.

pft and I spent some time at the weekend looking at various pumps online to try and cobble together a bodge and finally concluded, after reading numerous bad reviews, that yes, battery water pumps aren't all they're cracked up to be.

But, by the Magnificence of Amazon, we did find a perfect work around - arm-power. We ordered ourselves a "Zodi Extreme" for Christmas. This may not have the technological advancements of batteries and pumps, but it's so basic it's almost impossible for it to break. You fill it with water, you light the propane underneath it (or you can balance it on your normal stove). When the water is hot, you poke the pump in the top and pump 10-20 times - and voila - a hot shower. No batteries. No pumps. No mechanical thingies to fail.

It's here! Ordered Saturday morning, arrived Monday morning. Not bad.

From Zodi video, it looks like you can build up quite the pressure on it. All that remains is for us to get a trigger-controlled squirter (as seen in the video) and we'll be set.

It's coming with us on our Christmas camping trip and I will report back how successful a device it is.