Here’s what you don’t want to hear, “He’s peeing again, Mommy.” No good… just no good.
There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that I’ve learned to trust my get when it comes to the RV. Everything was so new and there have been plenty of times when I thought.. and hemmed and hawed… before saying something to Scott. Now… I just know and I throw the red flag immediately. For example, today. Today we were puttering around, taking our time getting ready to go. I was working inside and I noticed the bathroom smelled. It doesn’t usually smell. It’s a new toilet with a good seal and I use some orange stuff to “help whatever magic goes on down below”. So I cleaned the toilet and turned on the fan. A few minutes later… same smell but stronger. Huh. Then Evie came in, made a face and turned on her heel and left. Ok… flag on the play.
“Ssssscccccoooooottttttt, please come in here.”
He came in, smelled it… hemmed and hawed a little. “Did you clean the toilet?” “Yes.”
No one wants a bathroom problem less than I do. Scott, “No idea.”
He went back outside and I hear, “Oh… I know what the problem is. Come look.” Evie, “He’s peeing again, Mommy.” Oh for the love of…. I don’t want to hear ‘come look’. I don’t want to know. As far as I’m concerned… make it go away and that’s as far as I need to know.
Turns out, the horrible, terrible, very bad smell was the grey water tank overflowing. I had done the dishes one last time and it put that sucker over the edge. It wasn’t gushing like the time with the fuel, but it was dripping out the side of the RV… and it smelled. Awesome. This time, the Chief actually smelled like it was peeing (or pooping as Evie said between giggles). I know it wasn’t the actual toilet tank so I’m not entirely sure it came to smell like that… but it was eye watering, no doubt.
Oddly, Scott then started to go back to getting things ready to go. That’s when Dictator Traci arrived on scene and started barking orders. We had both tanks emptied in less than a minute. I don’t think anything broke and we cleaned up our mess so it’s all good. Now we know we can’t go 6 days and 5 nights on one grey water holding tank. That’s too much.
On the way to St. Louis, I’m sure you saw that the muffler broke. To be clear, it wasn’t my driving (although I will admit that I got the old boy up to full running speed accidentally a few times – we saw 85 mph for a fraction of a second). Once we got to the campground for the night, Scott took the car to an AutoZone in St. Louis and bought some supplies. My basic understanding is that there are supposed to be 3 screws. There was 1. He’ll be putting the 2 news in tomorrow using his fancy new lay-down-on-your-back-and-wheel-under-the-vehicle thing. We’re under there enough… we finally realized that it would be a good investment to have one.
This RV park is weird. It’s a giant parking lot with hook ups. It’s entirely pavement except for some token grass for dogs to pee on and a modest playground for the kids. That’s fine – it’s serving it’s purpose. But holy crap… at $53 a night, I could almost find a hotel for that!! I’m not trying to be a cheap bastard… but $53 for a patch of pavement? We won’t be affording St. Louis for very long.
