Honey, What Does It Mean When That Alarm Thingy Comes On ....?

Mary Lynn had me doing a bunch of chores yesterday just so I could appreciate the rest of our time. She was successful; the chores were much too much like work. Put together our new grill, the grill stand, installed paper towel holder, etc. The most work of all involved our 'grey' water tanks. RV's have three tanks: 1) Fresh water 2) Grey water & 3) Black water.

Fresh water is just that, fresh; you connect to campground water and/or carry ~60 gallons of fresh water with you. Grey water is the water that drains from the shower, kitchen sink, and bathroom sink. It needs to be dumped when the tank is full. The Black water tank is connected to the toilet and also needs to be dumped when full.

The point is we are in a campground that has electricity and water; no sewer connection. When the grey water tank showed (via a little LED moniter) that it was full we had two choices: 1) break camp (pull in the slides, pull up the levelers, disconnect water & electricity, etc, etc) and go to the dump site in the park OR 2) Use a portable tank to empty the tank and take the portable tank to the dump site. Much easier, right?

Except we had to go buy a portable tank, which meant measuring the basement storage doors and storage areas in order to understand how big of a tank (how many gallons) we could use & store. These tanks are affectionately known as a 'honey pot' in camping circles. Being a fan of honey and not wanting to associate honey and what goes into these tanks I'll just stick to portable dump tank or something along those lines.

Anything you buy has to fit in the RV so you can take it with you. Earlier this week we bought two nice outside lounge chairs only to find out they would not fit in any of the basement storage areas. Not good. Could have strapped them to the coach's ladder on the back but I think that makes you look like a couple of gypsy's going down the road plus you have to worry about things getting blown off, hitting the toad and/or traffic. Not to mention the road grime that gets on everything when the roads are wet. Maybe in the future but not now.

In any case, went to a camper store to buy the tank and found out these things are huge compared to the storage area of the RV. Bought the next to the smallest tank. Means more trips to a dump site when we have to use it but I found a way to get it into the basement. Tilt the front just so, raise the back while twisting the wheels around, raise right arm and left leg, tilt your head back, mumble something about your spouse taking long showers... you get the picture.

Anyway, it holds 22 gallons, which mean when you fill it it weighs (8.3 pounds/gallon of water * 22) wow: 182.6 pounds. Which translates to: I better find a way to tow the tank with the CR-V since I'm not making even one trip lugging 183 pounds to the dump, yet alone several. BTW: the largest tank I've seen is 40 gallons which equals 332 pounds. Ouch.

The point being, we now have a bright blue portable dump tank sitting under the coach and $150 less in the wallet. Doesn't seem like a good deal until your RV tanks are full/overflowing. Then $150 Vs cleaning up sewage from the RV sounds like a bargain.

The reason for telling you all of this was not a tutorial on RV holding tanks and/or a long winded discourse on RV sewage options. The point was this. It took me so long to get all of the measuring and research done that by the time I bought the tank it was late on a Friday afternoon. Got stuck in rush hour traffic on a Friday. Decided I didn't miss work and the associated ill's one bit, so I guess we'll continue with our extended travel plans. Just not during rush hour.

See ya!

BTW: Yesterday we heard that Mary Claire's procedure proved the bone cyst to be benign. This is great news. Her bone graft operation will be next Tuesday at Johns Hopkins. You go girl!