Eating Humble Pie

Our Quartzite Home

I've been pleased with modifications I've made to our motor home. I replaced the bulky old TV above the front windshield with a new LED model. Looks great and works fine. I removed the second bulky old TV from the bedroom and replaced it with a newly installed shelf and cabinet space. More useful than a 2^nd TV.

Expecting to do most of our “camping” without electrical hookups and not being fond of generator use, I created a new battery compartment and replaced the two 12V batteries with 4 golf-cart batteries. I then installed two large solar panels on the roof (thank you for your help, Monte). We have now been living for two months without having an electrical hookup and have used the generator only 2 or 3 times, mostly to give it regular exercise. We have all the electrical power we need/want and the batteries are back to full-charge every evening.

We had our first RV back in the late 60's—a small trailer we could pull with our '64 Mustang. Since then we have had a converted van camper, two different travel trailers and now our class A motorhome. We have traveled many thousands of miles, spent countless days and nights in the RV's, and experienced (and solved) many of the problems that occur.

I should be able to pat myself on the back in congratulations for being an RV “EXPERT.”

Then came time to visit the dump station half-way through our stay at Quartzite. A routine event, not eagerly anticipated but one handled easily many, many times by all RVers.

I pulled the motorhome into the narrow space and slowly crept forward to align my waste tank outlet with the dump station drain. Leaving the motor on I opened the door to double-check and hear the noise of the automatic steps grinding on the curb. Attempting to retract the stairs was not successful but moving the motorhome forward a few feet (with accompanying grinding) finally freed them.

The following is not for the squeamish! Now in position to empty my tanks. I get out the drain hose and set it up ready to connect to the outlet of my waste tanks. I grasp the cap to unscrew it and attach the drain hose. That should be an uneventful procedure. This time it wasn't! One or both of the slide valves for the grey water and black water tanks had been leaking. I would like to think it was only the grey water valve but suspect it was worse!

After a messy cleanup I finished dumping the tanks and proceeded to the next task. Filling the water tank. How difficult can that be?

There is a line of RV's wanting to dump and fill with water. I don't want to hold anybody up and am hurrying on to the water spigots when I realize that I always fill the water on the passenger side and am now waiting in line for the driver's side. No problem. I think there's a way to fill on the driver's side.

My turn comes and I hook my hose to the spigot and hook it to the city water connection on the motorhome. I turn on the spigot and wait for the tank to fill. After considerable time another RVe

r asks, “Are you sure you have connected that correctly?” I hadn't flipped the switch to send it to my water tank instead of directly to the motorhome plumbing. No water was going anywhere.

I went around the motorhome where I could see the water level in the tank and convinced myself it was filling but slowly. By this time another RVer was beside me and I was commenting on how slow it was going but I was still convinced it was filling. Then I noticed the spray around their spigot connection and none around mine. I checked the spigot. I hadn't turned on the water.

The fact that a 30 minute dump station trip had taken me an hour was bad enough. What was really bothering me was that multiple RVers had observed my ineptitude and undoubtedly concluded that this gray-haired old man was undoubtedly no longer capable of handling the operation of a motorhome.

Hopefully this dump station trip was just an anomaly and not an accurate picture of my qualifications to continue this trip in our motorhome.