Our RV Adventures

There was a problem with last night’s blog photos, but I fixed it earlier today, so go back and check them out if you missed them.

We bumped our walk up to a little over a mile and a half this morning, one mile, then coffee and English muffins, finishing up with a final half mile. Tomorrow we’ll try to up it to 1.75 miles, which is where we were at Lake Conroe.

About 3pm Jan and I drove into Columbus for dinner and shopping, with our first stop the hardware store right off the town square, for some picture hangers, and also to ask about a local welder for our rig’s aluminum screen door hinge. Turns out they had both the hangers and the info.

They recommended Schneider Welding out east on US90, almost to I-10. And looking at their website, it seems they should be able to fix the hinge, so I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

Next up was dinner at Whataburger, always good, as usual. Then it was on to Wal-Mart for a few things. The Columbus Wal-Mart is not a SuperCenter, but an old one where they shoehorned in a limited grocery section with mostly just staples. So after Wal-Mart we stopped off at the Brookshire Bros. Market on the way home for some fresh fruits and veggies, and a few other things WM didn’t have.

Getting back to the rig and getting the groceries put away, I discovered we have a problem, one that we’ve never had before in 9 years of RV’ing. We have a partially clogged black tank.

Normally we have no problem going two weeks before we empty the black tank. Which means I usually dump the tanks right before we leave a park, and then dump them again two weeks later. We’ve actually gone 18 days between black tank dumps.

The Friday before we left Lake Conroe this past Sunday, I closed the grey tank to have some water to flush the hose. Then Sunday morning I dumped the black tank while I was putting away the satellite and some other stuff.

So I didn’t see how much came out. I do know that it started flowing when I pulled the handle, but then I walked away. When I came back a little later, there was nothing flowing, so I closed the black tank and dumped the grey tank. All this was my standard procedure.

But when we got home this afternoon, the black tank was almost full again. Thinking maybe water was leaking into the tank somehow, I went outside and dumped the black tank again. But, although something came out, it was obviously not enough for a full tank. And checking inside, the level was down, but only a little.

Then back outside I hooked up to tank’s built-in flush system to see if that would help. Water went in, and water came out the dump valve, but the level didn’t really change.

So tomorrow I’ll have to look further into the problem and see what I find.

It seems that Karma has decided that this is her new home. She’s made no attempt to escape since we brought her home, and in fact sometimes hides under Moose when she sees us going in and out of the rig. But we still keep a close eye on her then.

We got Mister’s old scratching perch out and Karma took to it almost immediately.

It’s made from pressed corrugated cardboard, and makes a combination bed and scratching post. I put her on it a couple of times and she jumped right off, but a little later she was back on it by herself.

One thing kind of unusual is that she’s fascinated by the sound of running water. Any time she hears the faucet running, she’s right up on the counter almost climbing into the sink to watch. And she even lays down next to the Mr. Coffee when it’s bubbling away.

Strange Kitty. She’s going to fit right in.

Wrapping up, I came across this video of Hero, the SuperCollie, doing a dance routine with his owner, Sara. Hero is a Border Collie, not a Lassie Collie, and has been on many TV shows, including David Letterman.

Border Collies are supposed to be the smartest dogs, and Hero lives up to that with the 100’s of tricks he knows.

Check it out.

Thought for the Day:

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw

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