Our RV Adventures

Our son-in-law Lowell sent pics of Landon’s new swimming pool in the backyard.

Looks like Landon is all ready for the summer.

I was up about 10:30 and after coffee and a Cinnamon Crunch muffin from Sam’s Club, I caught up on Internet stuff and then headed next door to Nick’s to help him tackle the job we’d both been dreading.

Pulling off his sewer cap and installing the twist-on black valve we bought yesterday

Because Nick has a a clear plastic extension on his sewer connection, it was easy to see that the internal black valve had broken because the extension was completely full. Oh boy!

I had a couple of empty 5 gallon kitty litter buckets so the plan was to take the cap off with the bucket underneath to drain it off and then install the twist-on valve. Easy peasy, right?

Wrong!  What we didn’t count on was that the internal black valve had failed fully open. So when we (Nick) took the cap off it took about 5 seconds for the 5 gallon bucket to fill up . . . and run over!  Ewwwwwww!  Ok, cap back on.

So, time to rethink this.

It’s now obvious that we are essentially trying to dump the entire black tank into a small bucket. So we’re going to have to install the twist-on valve on the fly.

Ok, new plan.

Using the 2nd bucket Nick took off the cap while I was ready to twist the valve on. I left it open so the waste would continue to flow into the bucket instead of backing up into the bay if it were closed. And as soon as it was locked on, I slammed the handle down.

Job done.

But with the extension still on there, the bay door won’t close. So when Nick leaves tomorrow, he’ll drive over to the dump station, hook up his hose, open the new valve and dump. Then he can remove the extension and install the twist-on valve back in its place.

Now it was time to dump the buckets and throw them away, clean up and disinfect the area,  and then hose each other down.

With that messy job done, we all headed up to Yuba City about 2 pm so I could pick a new tail light converter. The local U-Haul dealer said on the phone they had one, but I wasn’t sure they understood what I was talking about as far as ‘powered’ vs. ‘unpowered’.

On the 25 mile trip north we also scouted out possible cappuccino locations for Nick. Since he didn’t get a cappuccino yesterday, and then got bathed in #$%# this morning, he really needed the warm solace of that rich confection to soothe his fragile mind and body. Well, fragile mind, anyway.

On the way to the U-Haul I saw an O’Reilly Auto Parts so I decided to check there also. They didn’t have a powered converter, but they did have something else I was looking for.

A tail light tester. This goes inline with your hookup and shows you if the lights are working coming from the coach.

Getting the tester, we next stopped at the U-Haul place right down the road. And, as it turns out, they did have the powered converter I wanted.

In case you’re wondering, (or even if you’re not) a powered converter has a separate 12v line feeding into the box that supplies the power to the lights in the vehicle being towed. An unpowered converter uses the rig’s lighting system to also power the toad’s lights. This can overload the coach lights, possibly burn out the turn signal flasher, and cause all the lights to be dimmer than they should.

Leaving the U-Haul we stopped by the Post Office and then headed back over to the Lumberjack’s Restaurant that we ate at on Tuesday after we got here.

This time, Jan, Nick, and I had the Chicken Fried Steak, and Terry had the Liver & Onions. And it was just as good as last time. This is a great restaurant.

When we went in to eat, I took the instruction sheet for the converter in with me. And discovered that I now didn’t need the tester I got at O’Reilly because this powered converter had one built in. So after dinner we went back by there to return it and get my money back.

Hey, $8.49 is $8.49!

Coming home we stopped at a Chevron station and rewarded Nick with his craved cappuccino since he’d had such a rough day.

Later, back at the rig I installed and tested the new converter box while Nick supervised.

Well, he watched, anyway. And held tools.

Nick is good at holding tools, too.

He’s just not allowed to use them.

As I mentioned above, Nick and Terry are heading out tomorrow for the Oregon coast. We’ll leaving on Saturday to head up to the Mt. Shasta area, and then on to Crater Lake for a couple of weeks. We’ll meet up with them again for a couple of weeks toward the end of June, and then split off again until sometime in September when we’ll all be back in Celina, OH for the Nick and Terry’s Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally.

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Thought for the Day:

"…it’s better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for someone you’re not"

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Our daughter Brandi sent this video of Landon encountering a beachball. He was so enamored of it they had to stop on the way home and buy him one. Actually they bought him two, since they figured Kitty, their 105 pound Black Lab would probably finish off one of them before too long.

Got up this morning about 10:30 to a cold, steady rain, a continuation of what had gone on pretty much all night. But a pot of coffee and a toasted blueberry bagel with cream cheese helped brighten things up considerably.

About 1 pm we all headed out into a light drizzle to Village RV down in Roseville near Sacramento so Nick could get the cable-controlled black valve that he ( I need ) needs to replace his leaky one.  He also picked out one of these to use in the meantime.

It’s a tank valve that just connects to your tank output and gives you a master valve to control everything. Apparently a lot of people use these instead of replacing their bad ones.

While we were there I picked up some 12v vanity mirror light bulbs, and looked for the type of tail light converter I want but they didn’t stock one.

Leaving there, we next headed to a nearby Sam’s Club to pick up some supplies, and then gas while we were there at $3.87 a gallon.

By this time it was after 3 and everyone was getting hungry so we decided on a nearby Fuddrucker’s. We always enjoy their burgers and this was no exception. Nick and I had the Ribeye Steak Sandwich and Terry and Jan had burgers. Since it started raining even heavier we sat around for a good while just talking.

After a while the rain stopped . . .  and then a 5 minute hailstorm started. After the hail stopped, it started raining again. You just can’t win.

Our next stop was a Fry’s Electronics we had passed on the way in. Nick was looking for a bigger battery for his cell phone and Terry wanted a case for her new Panasonic camera.

I just like to walk around since I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.

Next it was off to Wal-Mart for some more stuff, and then finally we were on the way home. But before we got there Nick decided he needed a cappuccino fix.

Unfortunately he didn’t speak up until we were out in the middle of nowhere, so we spent a fruitless 45 minutes or so looking for a place to get one.

It’s really amazing how desolate it is here between Sacramento and Yuba City. There’s just nothing. So Nick had to go cappuccinoless. And he was not very happy about it, believe me.

We finally gave up and got home about 7:30 to be greeted by another surprise.

NO power. The storm had apparently knocked it out. Don’t know how long it had been off, but it didn’t come back on until almost 9. Of course we did just fine on the inverter.

Just like boondocking.

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Thought for the Day:

"If all the rich people gave all their money to all the poor people, in five years the rich people would be rich again and the poor people would be poor again."

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