1/16/2015

Well, while at work during a week of gloomy, dreary, rainy, cold, windy, weather, there had been 7 wrecks on my way to work. Thankfully, none of the wrecks involved me or anyone I know. However this Friday had been especially bad with fog, frozen bridges, etc.

At 3:00 on the dot, I walked into my manager’s office only to see out his office window that the sun was shining brightly for the first time in weeks, and the temperature had warmed up to a tropical and balmy 45 degrees. After I finished my quick, brief update to him for the issues at hand, I promptly notified him that I had just made a rush decision to go camping for the weekend. I called my wife and had her to load the few items that we don’t keep stocked in the motor home. During my 1 hour drive home from work she not only had it loaded and fully stocked with food, she had actually cranked the motor home and had the engine warmed up, and air-ride and breaks fully aired up.

So with a short 25 minute drive, to Guntersville State Park, we were backed in, level, and ready to connect everything, which is where the issues began.

Remember the part about several weeks had gone by with cloudy, COLD, and wet and COLD, and dreary, and COLD, and gloomy, and COLD, weather we had been having. After all it is Mid-January and it should be cold, but COLD in Alabama is usually above 32 degrees. However we have had several days with temps in the single digits.

The sewer was all hooked up, and the electric was all hooked up, and the heat pump was powered on and the fridge was cold, and we were all set. HOWEVER, the water hose got hooked up last, and tested knowing how cold it had been lately we expected we might have a problem. Well, our expectations were indeed met and exceeded.

The incoming water filter housing had completely burst the bottom out of it, and the water was simply pouring right through to the ground. Not much use in checking any farther, and it was too late to do anything about it that Friday evening.

We decided to do without water as fortunately we were parked very close to one of the parks very clean bath houses and just used that for the first night.?? Our normal habits are to drink, and make coffee with bottled water anyway.? We also added brushing teeth, and washing hands to that list on this particular night.

SATURDAY – 1/17/2015, we got up early and had coffee and left as soon as the closest RV repair center was open. There was one about 20 miles away so we headed out on a mission. I needed tools, and parts both. We had heard on the radio that this place moved to a location beyond where we were used to going, so we flew right past the place where they are still located as they had not moved yet. We turned around and went back to the correct location and walked in with the broken filter housing in our hand and the nice ladies at the desk spotted from about 30 yards away and said ” You need a new filter housing too, we have been selling a lot of them lately” 🙁

I knew we had come to the right place. She immediately pointed us to the shelf and 60 dollars later we had the repair part and extra filter cartridges. She was experienced enough to give us advice to check the toilet valves too as they had been selling a lot of them too. 🙂

We were then off to Lowes to buy an allen wrench set that I will keep in the motor home for any future needs. We picked up a set and headed to the grocery since we had not packed much food for this quick exit and poorly planned trip. Another 40 dollars later we were headed back to the campground to do some major handyman work ( which I am not qualified for ) but I try.

To make a long story just a bit longer, I replaced the filter housing, and instructed by sweet, patient, and loving wife to go watch the toilet, and sinks and to listen for sounds of water spray. I was expecting that there would be leaks in the cabinets, or under the washing machine or behind the toilet. The instructions included bang on the camper if I needed to turn the water off again. I waited, and waited, and didn’t hear any banging so I immediately assumed she had slipped and fell in a puddle of water or was otherwise detained because I really did expect to hear her banging.

I heard nothing so I walked around to find out that the repair was just that simple. That is almost the only plumbing problem we had. Although worth mentioning is the rinse hose used for spraying out the black water holding tank did have a small crack in it too, but that only required a small amount of silicon plumbers tape and a bit of tightening to fix.

AH! the adventures of camping with the Burgetts. Stay tuned for the next trip,,,, however, this trip is not over yet…….