Friday, July 24, 2009

It was going so well....

It was going so well….

1. The morning after the Grand Canyon day started off really well. We got the camper packed and closed up; Garrett raised the hitch and I backed the truck up to the hitch. I got it lined up on the first try, by the way. But then the hitch made a funny noise. And it looked kind of awkward… was it up too high?? I checked in the office to see if anyone could help me, and the one old guy I found said he didn’t know anything about electric hitches. I called Lloyd. He said according to the manufacturer, the hitch could not be overextended. Well, had they really tested that? Like tested it with a 12 year old and his mother?

Lloyd called me back with a plan to override the electric hitch and do it manually. Of course this required tools I did not have so I did what I could with my pocket knife and finally found a couple of guys with the right tools. I soon had a team of guys helping me with the hitch and we got it working!

2. We found a very nice campground in New Mexico, got set up, had a nice dinner, and went for a swim. It had been a hot day, but the evening was beautiful. Clear, sunny and breezy. On the way back from the pool, I noticed water dripping from the back of the camper. I thought I turned the a/c off? I walked up to the camper, opened the door and the first thing I notice is that the floor was soaking wet. It took about 10 seconds to realize the camper was full of water! The bathroom shower was overflowing and the bathroom sink faucet was on and water was everywhere!

I turned off the sink, but I wasn’t sure what happened or what to do with all the water. So we grabbed towel, sheets, anything we could find to mop up the water. Then I realized that the water tanks must be full.

Note: Many campsites have electricity, water, and sewers at the site. Nicholas and I had a couple of mishaps with the sewer stuff so we usually go for a campsite with just water and electricity and use the campground dumping station for empting the holding tanks when we leave. The campsite we were at did not have sewers at the site. That would have made things much easier.

Once we got a lot of the water up, we needed to empty the holding tanks. That, of course, meant we needed to drive to the dumping station. In order to drive we had to hitch, close up the beds, bring the slide in, and unhook the water and electricity. It was 10:00 and dark. But we did it. We did it and drove to the dumping station, emptied the holding tank, drove back to the campsite and set everything back up. Then I started doing laundry. Five loads.

The kids were amazing helpers with all of this. They were excited to help, and dare I say, almost giddy. “Are you going to put this on the blog? What are you going to call it? How about sewer catastrophe? Are we going to have to get a new camper? ARE YOU GOING TO TELL DAD????”

We never really figured out how the whole thing happened. Seems “nobody” was in the bathroom before we went to the pool. We left all the fans running on full power overnight and I think that really helped. The place was pretty dry in the morning and with the hot, dry days ahead of us, I think the camper will be fine.

3. Because things happen in 3’s… The last thing is actually very minor, just “cosmetic” really. And when you are standing a few feet away from the camper, you can hardly tell.



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