Into New Mexico and Some New Territory

Did you ever move into a smaller house? Of course you did, especially if you are an RVer. After just three months in our new home, the park trailer on our site in the Benson SKP Park, we moved back into the motorhome for this two-week trip. What a change!

We are having to get accustomed once again to our “one-butt kitchen” (thanks to Darlene Miller for that apt description), stepping out of each other’s path down the short hallway, flushing with a foot pedal, and all the other stuff we had known so well for our first seven years living in the motorhome.

What’s the toughest change? No question about that: it’s having to dump our sewer tanks after a few days!

Anyway, here we are at Rusty’s RV Ranch in Rodeo, NM.

This is a neat park, 40 sites with full hookups, and each site is a full quarter acre, so you aren’t on top of your neighbor. Our site is right on the western edge of the park, with a view of the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona to the west and the Peloncillo Mountains of New Mexico to the east. It’s a Passport America Park, so the first night is $12, and all subsequent nights are $12 plus $2 for electricity.

We’re close to the Arizona state border and the Coronado National Forest. Plans are to take a car tour today on a loop trip into some excellent birding areas with pleasant vistas. At the end of the loop, we are promised a cafe and bakery with delicious pies in the little town of Portal, AZ!

Now, following the example of Al the Stargeezer (and you gotta go read his blog, at least the first part – just click the underlined link), I’m confessing my stupid stunt of last evening. And it has to do with dumping the sewer tanks, mentioned above.

It’s been quite a while since we traveled much, and this trip had shaken up the black tank and loosened a bunch of old crud. The aroma was strong when we arrived here, so Suzy insisted I dump and rinse the tank REALLY WELL. Our system has a rinse valve built in to the black tank. You simply hook up a hose and flush the tank after dumping, then dump it again. I did that twice, then turned off that hose connection at the Y, just like always.

This morning, when I went out to take this picture of the sunrise, I noticed the desert floor was quite wet under our motorhome.

On closer inspection, I could see water dripping from several places, so I turned off all the water at the source and went in and told Suzy we had a problem. Just then she went to flush the toilet and saw that the tank was absolutely FULL. And I had dumped it last night! I dashed around to the  hose connection and saw that it was not quite fully “off” at the Y. Gadzooks! I remedied that situation, pulled the gate open and let the full tank of water drain.

There was just enough flow leaking through that Y connection to fill the black tank, but not enough to fill it during the night. Our timing was virtually miraculous. If we had gone off on our car trip without catching that problem … you RVers know exactly what we’d have found at the end of the day!

Great to be back on the road, having fun in … Our Life on Wheels!

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