Never a dull moment for RVers

When we started RVing, I expected it to be exciting. Or at least never boring. However, there were lots of exciting moments that I could never have contemplated—even in nightmares!

Pipes leaking, the roof leaking, the air conditioner leaking, the toilet leaking? Yes, it seems every darned thing in this motorhome has a seal that shrivels up, or dries out, or falls apart, and hence the dreaded leak. Luckily my husband is handy or this lifestyle would have become too complicated for me a long time ago.

I stepped out of the shower onto a wet spot the other day and thought it was just where the shower door had dripped water. Only it didn’t dry up. Not that day, and not the next! Finally hubby decided to check it out before the wet spot spread. And you guessed it—the seals on the toilet had done their thing with a final gush of water (I hope clean) that soaked a spot on the carpet.

So he bought seals for the toilet. It was too hot to work on it when he brought them home that day, so he took a nap. That always works to make things better. Then today he decided to tackle pulling the toilet, and that’s when he found out he had bought the wrong seals.

That’s where I come into the picture. I’m busy fixing lunch when he informs me that I need to run into town to pick up the correct seal, but first I need to drop him and the toilet off at the dump station so he can clean it thoroughly before reinstalling it. Not before I eat the lunch I’ve prepared, I indignantly inform him!

After my trip into town I pick him up at said dump station and find him dying (not literally) of thirst. Never mind that I had offered him my diet coke before I left him in the hot sun preparing to hoist the 100 lb. toilet around for an hour or so.

Finally we get home and he realizes the carpet needs to be cleaned behind the toilet—a spot we can’t possibly reach when the toilet is in place because of the genius of RV designers and engineers who plan the placement of such things. Thank goodness hubby decides to scrub that area, but there’s still the rest of the carpet (including the big orange spot that spreads from the bathroom into the hall where I dropped and broke a bottle of steak sauce—don’t even ask what I was doing with a bottle of steak sauce there!) We’re having the carpet cleaned thoroughly later this week, but I have to pre-treat the spot (for the third and hopefully last time) before regular cleaning can commence.

Meanwhile, I’ve measured the distance between the motorhome and the campground restroom a couple of times so I’ll know exactly how far I have to sprint in the middle of the night, if necessary. And I’m keeping the BIG spotlight beside the bed so I can snatch it in a hurry and use it to watch out for rattlesnakes, tarantulas and scorpions between here and the restroom. Such is the life of a fulltime RVer!

Now that you’ve heard way more than you ever wanted to know about RV toilets, I’ll try to think of something more positive for next month’s RVing article.

Next time: the Grand Canyon Railway excursion