Surprise Reprise

I'm beginning to take warmth and running water a little less for granted these days.  I woke this morning fully expecting all our problems to have vanished as a result of our efforts yesterday.  My morning pot of tea makes my world go 'round and at 6 am I discovered that once again, we had no water. No water = No tea.  Second day in a row.  I really think my husband is going to get tired of me waking him at ridiculous hours to deal with heating and plumbing issues simply because I can't see straight without tea. 

The hose that we so lovingly wrapped twice yesterday did not do its job.  After pondering the problem, which probably took longer given my lack of liquid stimulation, I realized that the heat tape works on a thermostat which was placed on the end of the hose that is inside the heated RV chamber; the heat tape didn't come on and our hose was hosed, as the Canadians would say.  The quick answer was to obtain a short length of hose to fit inside the heated area and attach the heated hose to it, outside the RV.  After driving around to multiple stores with no luck we procured a four foot hose from my father in law.  We now have running water again but we are tentatively holding our breath. 

I feel a little nervous because the temperature is supposed to be 14 below on Tuesday night.  Our RV is only tested to 0.  We are plenty warm inside but we are speeding through propane at about a tank every couple of days which is a large, unforseen expense.  We really have no choice because it is the only thing keeping the tanks from freezing; we just hope it is enough in the coming days. 

On a lighter note, I forgot to mention another surprise from yesterday.  When we were retracting our slide outs in preparation to take the rig to the dealer a huge chunk of ice fell off the top and landed squarely on our black water drain hoses.  The drain hoses are made of plastic which is terribly brittle in this cold so they cracked in multiple places.  Frozen sewage, resembling a root beer slushie, fell on the ground.  Boy, was that fun to try to deal with!

Oh, the learning curve with owning an RV!  This weekend's lessons are:  never leave your black water hoses out in freezing weather and you will do everything at least twice before you get it right.   It boggles my mind when I think of all the wisdom we will glean from this experience concerning things I never knew I would want to know!