We awoke this morning to chirping birds and cool crisp air. Feeling like we had conquered the challenge of RV life, we gathered the dogs and walked around the lake at the idyllic winery in central Missouri. We were heading west and planned to leave at about 9am after our walk and a leisurely breakfast.
An RV has a lot of moving parts. Water, electricity, HVAC, gas, plumbing, solar, etc. Learning all the systems takes a bit of study. I guess we were bound to make a mistake or two. We just didn’t think we’d make them all on the same morning.
There are three water tanks on the Airstream Interstate motor home we’re driving:
— a fresh water tank that holds 27 gallons of water for drinking, washing, showering, and , uh, the toilet.
— a gray water tank for all the water that goes down the sink and shower drain. It holds 17 gallons if this water.
— and, finally a black water tank. We’ll let you guess what that one holds.
Well, a design flaw on this RV is that when you close the cover on the sink while after using the hot water, the water will turn back on. If you don’t discover your error quickly, you use up fresh water while filling your gray tank. Yeah, we did that this morning. Then Lisa discovered that the bathroom floor was filled with soapy water that should have already gone down the drain. Well, my error with the sink filled the gray tank, emptied the fresh tank and caused the bathroom floor drain to back up. Thank goodness we didn’t make a mistake with the black tank!
As we prepared to leave with empty tanks that were supposed to be full and full tanks that were supposed to be empty, our propane generator suddenly stopped and all the lights went out. Total power failure. Oh, no.
Lisa and I immediately went to the ultimate authority — Google in order to solve this mystery. Nothing.
We did, however, find a service that offered an expert to help us solve the problem. For $1 (using our credit card number, of course) we could subscribe to their service and have a friendly technician magically give us the answers. After about 15 minutes, Randall, our friendly expert texted to say he was ready to help. After describing the problem he gave a couple of generic suggestions that made absolutely no sense to us,
Lisa and I walked around looking for something called genset, wondered why we didn’t have a digital multimeter to diagnose the issue, but mostly we just wandered aimlessly hoping for a miracle. Well, a miracle came along. As we were searching for a solution, I noticed that a switch, called the main disconnect switch, was in the off position. Hmm. I flipped it on and presto! the lights came on and everything worked. I let Randall know he solved the problem, embarrassed to tell him what really happened, and we breathed a sigh of relief.
You see, it turns out one of us had accidentally bumped the switch and turned it off. Lisa and I continue to be in disagreement as to who it actually was. To keep the peace, we’ve blamed Sophie.
The culprit — Main Disconnect Switch
After this near crisis we headed out to the freeway to find a dump station where we could empty our tanks so the bathroom would drain. Thirty miles down the road we found one and I dutifully did the deed — draining the tanks into a septic tank through a hole in the ground.
Lunch with Old Friends
Our route back to Boulder took us through Kansas City, conveniently close to our dear friends Steve and Stacey Physioc. They graciously offered to serve us lunch, and after our morning fiasco, we arrived an hour-and-a-half late. It was great seeing them. They have a beautiful home on 2 1/2 acres in the country. Stacey served us a healthy (of course) lunch and we bid them farewell. A significant benefit of this trip has been our ability to visit friends and relatives (all socially distanced, of course). We are thrilled.
Steve guided me out of their driveway as I backed into the street. He rushed to move solar lights along the edge of the pavement as I backed up, telegraphing to me that he really didn’t like the way I was handling the rig. Another rookie mistake. Fortunately I made it to the street with no damage and we were on our way.
A Race with Mother Nature
As we headed west through Kansas the skies began to darken. Lisa, ever the vigilant one, opened up the Weather Channel app to see what was up. She said, “Severe thunderstorms in Hays, Kansas with golf ball-sized hail. It’s heading north.
Well, from looking out the windshield it was clear that a massive storm was now south of I-70 and was heading into our path. We needed to get 20 miles down the road before the storm reached the highway. Big rigs clearly had the information as they were “putting their hammer down in their rush to get in the clear.
We felt the wind before the rain hit. I don’t know how strong it was, but, it was all I could do to keep us on the road. Should we pull over and find shelter or can we make it?
We decided to make a run for it. I couldn’t go too fast because of the high winds. The northern-most part of the storm hit us. It was dark, windy, rainy, and then the hail hit. We don’t have video of the worst part because our white knuckles had us paralyzed. I would have felt better if Lisa wouldn’t have kept singing the Wicked Witch of the West song.
The Winona Rider, although battered, did pretty well through the storm. As we came through to the other side we both looked at each other and exhaled loudly. Incredibly, the skies cleared and as we set up camp at a little nine-hole golf course in Wakeeney, Kansas, we opened a nice bottle of wine (of course) had pesto tortellini and were treated to a beautiful sunset. Life is good.
Lisa and Brad's Travels 