Saturday, October 16, 2010

Rv adventure - Part IV

I had a lovely rest of the evening, talking with my neighbors, then settling in with a good book and a Diet Coke, snug in my new RV at the Cheerful Valley Campground. It was getting just a wee bit chilly, so I decided to turn on the furnace. It immediately turned on - a good thing. Blowing cold air. Not so good.
During this trip I had with me only the things I could carry on the plane. No extra anything. Including blankets. It was a bit of a chilly night.
Next morning was gorgeous. I woke up early and decided to tackle the infamous black tank dumping that everyone dreads from the scene in the Robin Williams movie RV - Runaway Vacation.
The first thing I did was get out my sewer hose and hooked it up to the RV. No problem. Stretched it out (it's built like an enormous flexible straw) toward the hole in the ground it's supposed to attach to. And could not, if my life had depended on it, get out the plug from the hole in the ground. I tried. I tried really, really hard. No luck.
So I walked up to the campground office to get some help. I'm never reluctant to ask for help from experts. It saves lots of time and energy. But the office didn't open until 9 a.m. It was 7:30 or so.
I took a walk, took the pictures in the previous post. Sat and read. And waited. Finally, about 8:45, I went back to the office and was delighted it was open early. I explained the problem and the "strict dad" from the night before met me at the campsite.
I'm delighted to say - I didn't get it wrong. Some idjit drove over the plug and jammed it in. It took tools to get it out. And the actual dumping part? Easy! No muss, no fuss, no bother. I can see how it might go horribly wrong, but it didn't!
Cleaned up, emptied out, ready to go! I set out on the next stage of my trip, with a stop that night at another campground west of Cleveland, Ohio.
On the drive that day I learned that the RV is water-tight (it poured in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio), it likes flat country much better than mountains, and that I can, in fact, drive it and park it at a mall. There was a nice-sized mall at my interstate exit in Ohio and I really wanted to pick up some blankets for that night. If you're willing to walk - there's usually plenty of parking on the outskirts of most malls. While my parking job wasn't the neatest - it worked.
So on Sunday night I arrived 10 minutes too late to check in at the American Wilderness Family Campground in Grafton, Ohio. And if all, or even most, campgrounds are as nice as the two I've visited so far - I'm hooked.

2 comments:

BRUTUS said...

Hooked, and (if you have better luck with the sewer cover in the future) hooked up as well! LOL Our favorite moments are pluging into 50 AMPs in a good downpour. It ALWAYS is raining when we hook up it seems!

Michelle

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