I'm sure it was because J was there. It's Murphy's Law. Things were going smoothly for me this whole time, but then there was another person along, a person who might be skeptical of Alice's rustic beauty and provocative plumbing. Skepticism is a friend of mischief. It was nothing J did, but his presence altered the delicate balance of the trailer's ecosystem, and chaos and mayhem reigned!
We slept in later than I ever do, lingered over breakfast and lying about. I'm not used to it, and kept glancing at the clock. "It's really time to go," I would say. I took a shower, hot water refreshing. When I got out, we heard something. Outside, the sewer hose was having difficulty, as the warm water sat heavy in the hose, two feet below the raised sewer hole it was supposed to flush down. I had to lift it up to allow the water to exit. That should have probably clued me in other things could go wrong. Where was the rest of the water that hadn't been able to go into the tube?
J said he wouldn't take a shower, but I convinced him he should, that it was great. He relented. I went outside to manually hold the hose up to empty the water. It wasn't working, and tiny holes were appearing along the tube. We would have to replace it before emptying our black water tank, but I had emptied two nights ago and had gone as long as four without emptying, so it should have been fine. I asked him to turn the shower water off, unhooked the sewer line, and replaced it with my bucket. The bucket is what I use for washing dishes when I am camping in the woods. Usually, a shower is too much for a 5 gallon bucket. J resumed his shower. Within a few minutes, the gas ran out, and so did the hot water. Poor thing had to rinse in icy cold mountain water.
Forgetting about the bucket, I began the dishes, knowing we had limited time before we had to check out of the camp. Sure enough, the bucket overflowed, and we had to run out and manually scoop water out of it and into the drain tube. Yuck.
I showed J how to to unhook the hoses, unjack the jacks, hitch to the car. We washed our hands one last time, closed the windows. As I was double checking everything, I saw water on the floor. I mopped it up, but more appeared. And more. It was running across the floor diagonally, escaping out the front door. Following the trail, I found it came from where you never want to see water escaping--the toilet. The black tank was overflowing. The water was clear, so it seemed the shower water had backed into the tank and we would have to empty it after all.
It was a disaster. I had to reattach the sewer hose, and rubber-glove handle it to get an angle for the waste to flow into the sewer. I only let a little fluid out at a time, so the liquid wouldn't shoot out of the tiny holes. It was vial. When that was done, we mopped and disinfected the floor. We didn't leave the campground until after 1 PM, well after check-out, feeling awful, dirty, and miserable. The cleaning solution was making my lungs burn and my heart race, and soon I felt sicker than I had in a long time (and this was the "green" cleaning solution!). We stopped to buy the replacement LP line that would enable us to have hot water again, as well as new parts for the new sewer hose. Then, we went to find lunch, but had trouble finding a place to go, to park. By then, I was too sick to eat, and ordered tacos reluctantly. A few minutes before the food arrived, J got an emergency work call and left to deal with it in the trailer. I sat in front of my food, not wanting it, and his food, getting cold. I finally boxed up both meals, paid, and went to lay down in the trailer and listen to my heart palpitations while J was frantic on the phone.
We pulled out of town at 6PM, having not yet driven any of our 125 mile daily minimum, and were generally grumpy.
So what saved us? What made the day pleasant after all, erased the terrible morning, the ruined lunch? We listened to Harry Potter together and admired the landscape. Knowing campsites would either be sketchy or full at this time of night, and not wanted to deal with the trailer in any way other than for sleep, I had us pull into an Indian Reservation (you see the influence it had on me), remembering my friend's advice that I could sleep anywhere on a reservation without trouble. We went to the Casino, open all night with parking security. All the machines were penny and nickel bets, and they were happy to let us sleep in the parking lot. There was free soda and coffee, chili cheese dogs my now-healthy body was grateful for, and we played nichael video poker. I slept better than I had in three nights.
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