GREY FOX or why the movie "RV" starring Robin Williams is not fiction!
We had our first boondocking experience for 4 nights at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. Joining us were Pete, Candee, Carol, Paul, Krista and Krista's charming friend Kelly. Also, Bryce, Acacia and Adam joined us making it really special for Nancy and me. It turned out that Bryce is a talented singer/songwriter and created "The Acacia Song." (Lyric's available upon request.) Even better, we never had to send Bryce or Acacia to their rooms or give them a time-out! We had a wonderful time with no rain, although it was a little hot. Fortunately, our generator and both our air conditioning units worked to perfection.
On the first night of our trip we stopped at a dumpy campground in a Catskill resort which was right out of the 50's. However, at night, while Nancy slept, I went to the resort bar to experience the Irish music scene. There were 4 professional musicians playing in front of 50 or 60 amateur musicians who were attempting to play along with the pros. The amateurs did a great job. The large crowd ranged from bikers to college professors and created a really cool environment with fun Irish music.
At Grey Fox we were pleased to discover that the water system was sufficient to support 4-5 people for 4 nights with conservative use of the water. When we left on Sunday our black and grey water tanks were nearly full and our fresh water tank was nearly empty.
As we were leaving Grey Fox and reminiscing about the great time we had, everything went to "crap." Yes, after saying our goodbyes, we left with big smiles on our faces. Two minutes into our drive home, as I glanced down to turn on the side and rear view cameras, I heard Nancy yell "tree!" Next I heard a loud bang and a screeching sound as a broken tree branch kissed the entire 34' lenght of our rig. Yikes! When we stopped we discovered a 1/2" wide and 34' long mark approximately 10' high along the passenger side. Fortunately, it did not scar the surface and looks like it can be buffed out. (Of course, Nancy was at fault for this incident as 1st she didn't warn me to keep my eyes on the road and 2nd she did not give me an earlier warning.) With lesson learned, we returned to the road. Unfortunatly, this turned out to be the boring part of the trip.
10 minutes later we experienced a really nasty odor inside the rig. I figured it was just Nancy so I drove on still mad at myself for the earlier goof-up. Well the smell continued to get worse and it was not going away. We opened the windows giving us some relief and Nancy went to investigate. After living with the smell for 20 minutes, Nancy determined that it was coming from the kitchen sink. She sealed off the sink drain and the smell went away. I figure it is either the sink trap draining or a full grey water tank back-splashing into the sink trap while I was driving. Just so you know grey water stinks, not as bad as black water, but yes it is a foul oder! Once again, Nancy's fault for taking so many showers!
Next due to distractions in diagnosing the stinky rig, I drove right past the entrance ramp to the highway. (Once again, Nancy was at fault as she distracted me by telling me she discovered and fixed the problem.) Ordinarily, the pending detour would not have been a big deal, but I did not research this alternate route thoroughly and I knew there were some low-clearance bridges in the area. Since our air conditioners worked so well over the weekend, I did not feel like donating them to the span of a bridge. Fortunately, we found a gas station with a fair size open area to pull into. Unfortunately, to turn around required either backing out onto a very busy state road or performing a 180 degree turn onto another, less busy, state road. We opted for the 180 degree turn which forced us to block the road for a short period while making part of the turn, backing up, then completing the turn. Kudos to the patient Catskill drivers!
Now, back on course, Nancy decided to use the facilities. For some reason this resulted in the strong, fragrant scent of the black water tank filling the rig. This is an odor which grabs your attention! All hands on deck to open all windows and it still took 15 minutes to dissipate. Gross!!! I have no clue why this happened, but it was obvious who was at fault.
Finally, with all issues resolved we had a peaceful, uneventful journey back to home base. Now for the really fun part. Recall the movie "RV" and imagine the 150' black water geyser created by Robin Williams. Ready?
When we got back to our storage lot we needed to dump our grey and black water. Nancy wanted to learn how to perform this exciting task. Figuring I was already the master of this manly chore, I decided to show the "little woman" how a real man dumps, even throwing in a few interesting and fun shortcuts. As you can guess, I was was distracted by Nancy leaning a little too closely over my shoulder (so yes, her fault) as I twisted on the bayonet coupler to connect the drain pipe to the dump drain. The bad news was I only caught 2 of the 3 pins on the bayonet coupler. To exacerbate the problem I put a wicked tight curve in the black water discharge pipe resulting in the pipe crimping. So when I gave the "manly" tug to open the black water tank the black water had no place to go but out out the end with the faulty connection. Unfortunately, the faulty connection was in our utility compartment, which also contained, an outside shower, our fresh water connection, our water pump and various electrical connections. Well that stuff just shot out of there like a cannon! (I don't know if it could have attained Robin Williams' geyser height, but there was a lot of force behind the discharge.) Brown was the color of the day and it squirted all over the compartment. Fortunately, my hand was still on the release valve and I was able to quickly close the valve after no more than 1 gallon escaped its mirky confines. Needless to say our utility compartment was coated with "crap" and the bottom of the compartment was 1/2'" deep in pure, unadulterated s--t!
After admiring our Grey Fox cuisine for a few minutes Nancy started gagging. I started the cleanup by hosing out the compartment. I then pretended there were more immediate and important tasks elsewhere leaving Nancy to the serious cleaning duties. Finally, after more than an hour and several deep cleanings with a variety antibacterial products, we declared our rig sparkling clean. Whew--Yuck--Barf, what a trip! And yes, on the very next day Nancy made me go back to work.
Trivia Question: Why do they call it "black water" instead of "brown water?" It certainly looked brown to us.
Sorry for the length of this post and limited pictures, but the 1 picture I would have posted you would not have wanted to see.
Map of our 2013 travels:
Acacia & Adam
Bryce making a friend
Thank you to Carol for the pictures.
The music was fantastic. We really enjoyed The Duhks, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Infamous Stringdusters and The Steeldrivers. Although the music was great, the 2 a.m. bedtime was challenging.On the first night of our trip we stopped at a dumpy campground in a Catskill resort which was right out of the 50's. However, at night, while Nancy slept, I went to the resort bar to experience the Irish music scene. There were 4 professional musicians playing in front of 50 or 60 amateur musicians who were attempting to play along with the pros. The amateurs did a great job. The large crowd ranged from bikers to college professors and created a really cool environment with fun Irish music.
At Grey Fox we were pleased to discover that the water system was sufficient to support 4-5 people for 4 nights with conservative use of the water. When we left on Sunday our black and grey water tanks were nearly full and our fresh water tank was nearly empty.
As we were leaving Grey Fox and reminiscing about the great time we had, everything went to "crap." Yes, after saying our goodbyes, we left with big smiles on our faces. Two minutes into our drive home, as I glanced down to turn on the side and rear view cameras, I heard Nancy yell "tree!" Next I heard a loud bang and a screeching sound as a broken tree branch kissed the entire 34' lenght of our rig. Yikes! When we stopped we discovered a 1/2" wide and 34' long mark approximately 10' high along the passenger side. Fortunately, it did not scar the surface and looks like it can be buffed out. (Of course, Nancy was at fault for this incident as 1st she didn't warn me to keep my eyes on the road and 2nd she did not give me an earlier warning.) With lesson learned, we returned to the road. Unfortunatly, this turned out to be the boring part of the trip.
10 minutes later we experienced a really nasty odor inside the rig. I figured it was just Nancy so I drove on still mad at myself for the earlier goof-up. Well the smell continued to get worse and it was not going away. We opened the windows giving us some relief and Nancy went to investigate. After living with the smell for 20 minutes, Nancy determined that it was coming from the kitchen sink. She sealed off the sink drain and the smell went away. I figure it is either the sink trap draining or a full grey water tank back-splashing into the sink trap while I was driving. Just so you know grey water stinks, not as bad as black water, but yes it is a foul oder! Once again, Nancy's fault for taking so many showers!
Next due to distractions in diagnosing the stinky rig, I drove right past the entrance ramp to the highway. (Once again, Nancy was at fault as she distracted me by telling me she discovered and fixed the problem.) Ordinarily, the pending detour would not have been a big deal, but I did not research this alternate route thoroughly and I knew there were some low-clearance bridges in the area. Since our air conditioners worked so well over the weekend, I did not feel like donating them to the span of a bridge. Fortunately, we found a gas station with a fair size open area to pull into. Unfortunately, to turn around required either backing out onto a very busy state road or performing a 180 degree turn onto another, less busy, state road. We opted for the 180 degree turn which forced us to block the road for a short period while making part of the turn, backing up, then completing the turn. Kudos to the patient Catskill drivers!
Now, back on course, Nancy decided to use the facilities. For some reason this resulted in the strong, fragrant scent of the black water tank filling the rig. This is an odor which grabs your attention! All hands on deck to open all windows and it still took 15 minutes to dissipate. Gross!!! I have no clue why this happened, but it was obvious who was at fault.
Finally, with all issues resolved we had a peaceful, uneventful journey back to home base. Now for the really fun part. Recall the movie "RV" and imagine the 150' black water geyser created by Robin Williams. Ready?
When we got back to our storage lot we needed to dump our grey and black water. Nancy wanted to learn how to perform this exciting task. Figuring I was already the master of this manly chore, I decided to show the "little woman" how a real man dumps, even throwing in a few interesting and fun shortcuts. As you can guess, I was was distracted by Nancy leaning a little too closely over my shoulder (so yes, her fault) as I twisted on the bayonet coupler to connect the drain pipe to the dump drain. The bad news was I only caught 2 of the 3 pins on the bayonet coupler. To exacerbate the problem I put a wicked tight curve in the black water discharge pipe resulting in the pipe crimping. So when I gave the "manly" tug to open the black water tank the black water had no place to go but out out the end with the faulty connection. Unfortunately, the faulty connection was in our utility compartment, which also contained, an outside shower, our fresh water connection, our water pump and various electrical connections. Well that stuff just shot out of there like a cannon! (I don't know if it could have attained Robin Williams' geyser height, but there was a lot of force behind the discharge.) Brown was the color of the day and it squirted all over the compartment. Fortunately, my hand was still on the release valve and I was able to quickly close the valve after no more than 1 gallon escaped its mirky confines. Needless to say our utility compartment was coated with "crap" and the bottom of the compartment was 1/2'" deep in pure, unadulterated s--t!
After admiring our Grey Fox cuisine for a few minutes Nancy started gagging. I started the cleanup by hosing out the compartment. I then pretended there were more immediate and important tasks elsewhere leaving Nancy to the serious cleaning duties. Finally, after more than an hour and several deep cleanings with a variety antibacterial products, we declared our rig sparkling clean. Whew--Yuck--Barf, what a trip! And yes, on the very next day Nancy made me go back to work.
Trivia Question: Why do they call it "black water" instead of "brown water?" It certainly looked brown to us.
Sorry for the length of this post and limited pictures, but the 1 picture I would have posted you would not have wanted to see.
Map of our 2013 travels:
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