Noobie RV Rental Experience: Day 2

This morning, on my daily walk with Fender, I spotted a leak underneath the RV. Unfortunately, the water leaking was not clear... it was blue... and other colors too. Upon further inspection, I realized it was coming from the black water tank. Great.

The drain pipe had become completely disconnected, and was dripping out blue water, toilet paper, and everything else nasty that you'd expect to be leaking from a black tank. Fortunately the toilet had only been used a couple times so far this trip, so it wasn't a huge mess.

Without cell service, we weren't able to call Cruise America to come and repair it. We know they said not to make any repairs ourselves, but driving around looking for cell service while leaking sewage all over the road seemed like a greater offense in the grand scheme of things. Once Steve had a look at the problem he could tell that this wasn't the first time this RV has seen a black water leak. If you watch our video, you'll see that the mood was pretty light as Steve did his best to re-secure the hose clamps and mop up the mess.

When it came time to do the dishes, I made sure to switch the hot water heater on at least 15 min prior, so it would have time to heat the water. It was a nice thought but after nearly half an hour of heating up, I only got about 2 cups worth of warm water before it turned cold. Is there an insider RV tip for using the hot water heater? I can't imagine trying to take a shower like this. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, I just think I'm doing something wrong, and I want to be informed when designing my own RV someday.

After we were done mopping up the black water mess, we packed the RV up and took a scenic half hour drive to Electric Lake. With nothing better to do, we grabbed our Kokapelli packrafts and took a short hike up a little stream that fed into the lake—and I mean little. Our float down the stream was like bumper boats. In some spots it wasn't even wide enough to paddle so we'd push off the banks on either side to steer around rocks. It was also so shallow, we were hitting bottom and getting stuck on rocks a lot. I was hoping not to get my feet wet but once my foot went in, I was just glad I didn't end up taking a whole bath. It wasn't the best choice of places to float, but it definitively tested the durability of those Kokapelli packrafts and it was a real laugh.

Safe and warm in the RV again, it was time to sit down at the computers to do some video editing and writing. I was really hoping to use my sun oven today, but since it was cloudy, I'll save it for another day.

- tess