Today was as uneventful as yesterday was incredibly stressful. Though the sky was overcast and gloomy all the way from our starting point in Carson City to our afternoon destination at the Boulder Creek RV park south of Lone Pine, California, we enjoyed the ride nonetheless. Why not? It was just so restful without anything to do but motor along and chat. Of course this morning I had to perform a half dozen tasks like turning off the furnace, stopping the incoming natural gas at the meter, and crawling underneath the house to shut off the incoming water. But that was nothing. We had a leisurely breakfast, after which we transferred a few more items from the house fridge to the RV fridge just to make sure there wasn't the tiniest space left not already occupied by something. Did the breakfast dishes. Took out the trash. Then gathered up reading glasses, and reading books, and whatever last minutes things occurred to us, then it was down the road. Nothing to it.
But yesterday, that was different.
Yesterday I went about doing all those last minute things one must do on a RV before hitting the road. I filled the water tank. I checked the tires. I triple-checked all the lockers AGAIN just to make sure I hadn't left anything out. I took the wheel covers off and stowed them in the garage. Shouldn't need them for awhile. I took the front windshield cover off and stowed it in the rig. Might need that if we stopped longer then a day or so. Checked the propane tank. Mounted my map of the United States in the rear window. This map comes with little stickers so you can peel them off and apply to the map as you visit each state. I made sure everything we wanted in the cab was in place, from sun glasses to water bottles and a dozen other "necessities."
And then I decided to hook up a hose to the water inlet just to make sure there was enough water in the water heater so I could test the unit while we were still in a place where we could get it fixed if need be. Well, after the hose was connected, complete with pressure regulator, I checked to make sure water wasn't showing up where it shouldn't. When no water appeared to be skirting out anywhere I lit off the water heater and heard it come to life. "Nice," I thought to myself. "Sounds like it's working."
That's when I glanced toward the passageway between the kitchen and the bedroom/bath area and noted with a great deal of alarm that a rather large-sized puddle was forming. "What the..." I said as I dashed over to the hallway and sloshed right into a rather large body of water. Fording the stream I peered into the bathroom just in time to see water squirting everywhere from somewhere behind the toilet.
Naturally I dashed back to the patio faucet and cut off the water flow and then called to Concetta to find me a bunch of old towels so I could sop up the flood before it did any permanent damage. Once we had sopped up most of the water I set about determining just what had gone wrong. Being a landlord for the last 35 years I'm used to toilet problems, but I had never worked on a RV toilet before and had no idea just what to do. But as most grease monkeys know, you can always tell a lot by disassembling something, which is just what I did. Before long I had parts strewn everywhere, had lost the requisite amount of skin, and had determined that a crack had formed in the incoming plastic fitting onto which the water supply line normally attached.
Let's see, just hours to go before zero hour and I had to scare up what might prove to be a one-of-a-kind plastic gizmo off a six-year-old rig in Carson City, Nevada, where RV supply houses don't exactly take up three pages in the phone book. But ever hopeful, I threw the plastic gizmo into the car and dashed into town, stopping at the closest RV place. A couple of others are much further away. There, with a hopeful smile, I held out my plastic gizmo to the technician and said, "I don't suppose you have one of these?"
"Dometic?" he asked.
"Ah," I said semi intelligently. "Maybe."
I handed him the gizmo and he disappeared into the bowels of the back shop where he remained for some minutes. He finally appeared with a plastic bag in his hand and held the two parts up to see if they matched. It was pretty much impossible to tell. So he opened the bag and took out the new part and then held them up. They were a pretty good match, though the tiny triangles of plastic that held the unit to the toilet didn't look the same.
Before I could question the different mounting pieces the technician explained that the old triangles had been changed to make the gizmo more removable should one care to do that. I could see how the new part might be easier to remove. Getting the darn gizmo off the toilet had involved about twenty minutes of struggling, as I balanced a pocket knife and screwdriver and held my mouth just right.
"These are kinda pricey," the technician said, looking at me with a sort of sheepish grin.
I had been planning on buying two or even three of the gizmos so I could carry spares and not have to be in a panic to find one. "Oh," I said, wondering if they were like eight or nine bucks apiece which I certainly would be happy to pay. "How much is that?"
"Sixty bucks with the tax," he answered.
"Ah....I'll take one," I said, wondering how many gizmos I could probably get for that much money on Amazon or Ebay. "Sure glad you have them."
Before another hour had gone by the gizmo was attached to the toilet, the toilet and hoses were re-installed, the remainder of the water cleaned up, and I was happy, or as happy as anyone could be who was out sixty dollars for a part worth a few dollars.
So now, here we are in Lone Pine, California. Outside it's raining so enthusiastically that the nearby dirt road has already turned to mud. Still, it's warm and dry in the rig and everything is pretty darn right with the world. We've had our afternoon cocktails, our walk around the resort, and now we're looking forward to a nice quiet evening, providing the rig doesn't float away with the tide or something. And for dinner? Well, we're having stuffed pasta shells made with tomato sauce from the veggie garden last summer when it was pumping out millions of the little red gems. Wonderful!
So until tomorrow, we bid you happy traveling.
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