Friday was getaway day. We had a dinner to attend back in the Grand Valley, so we got up early, packed things away, hooked up the trailer and headed down the road to the dump station where we would drain our wastewater tanks.
We pulled in and lined up the wastewater outlet on the trailer with the sewer opening on the ground. We got out our flexible Rhino hose from the trailer and were ready to dump.
For those of you who have never had the “pleasure” of dumping sewage from a recreational vehicle, let me explain how it works:
In addition to a 50-gallon freshwater holding tank, our trailer has two 30-gallon wastewater tanks. One, designated the “black water” tank, holds water flushed down the toilet. The other, designated the “gray water” tank, holds water washed down the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Pipes from both meet at the sewer orifice, which is covered with a twist-off drain cap.
Pull-handle slice valves keep the wastewater from entering the sewer drain until the drain hose is connected. The procedure is to twist off the drain cap, hook the inlet side of drain hose to the sewer drain pipe, place the outlet end in the dump station sewer pipe and then open one of the slice valves. Properly done, it’s a clean, painless procedure. Of course, we failed do it properly.
For some reason, the black water slice valve on our trailer had somehow been left in the open position, which I failed to notice. As soon as I removed the cap to attach the drain hose, there was nothing to stop 30 gallons of black (mostly yellow) water from gushing out with force, which it did.
Uttering every four letter word I knew (and some I didn’t), I immediately tried to screw the drain cap back on. When that failed, I implemented Plan B and reached around to push in the handle to close the slice valve. That worked and the outflow finally stopped.
I could finally hook up the drain hose and properly drain the remainder of our wastewater. We hosed down the area as best we could, put everything away and headed for home with the odor from my sopping wet shoes making the truck cab smell like the back alley behind a homeless camp.
I’m very much looking forward to our next trip, which will be taken in the Subaru, not the truck.
Instead of bunking in a trailer or tent, we will be “camping” in rooms we’ve reserved in motels and hotels along the way.
No trailer leveling, no microwave repairing and no dump stations. I am so looking forward to the next trip.