Ch. 2 - Farewell Texas / Arkansas Ya Later
With the major challenges of purchasing (dodging skeevy salesmen) and packing (sweater collections pared down) their new 24 foot motorhome, Rosie and Rinni hit the road exuding confidence, excitement, and curiosity. Surely what laid ahead would be chock full of that ‘free wheeling joy of the open road’ country songs repeatedly promised us all.
Three hundred miles down the road, they pulled into a sweet campground on the outskirts of Little Rock. They hooked up the RV, proud to be in a new state on the first day of their adventure. Feeling triumphant, they strolled the parks idyllic ponds covered in water hyacinth blooms and listened to the gentle birdsong wafting across the golden rays of a perfect sunset. They thought to themselves “Damn, we are good at this”, high-fived, and returned to their home on wheels.
This is where the good feelings dissipated.
The power was out and the temperature was rising. After a night of troubleshooting, flipping breakers, calls back to home base, YouTube-ing, forum posting, and hypothesizing - they had a work around for the large power draw (which was cutting off power to the whole rig) and a theory that the house batteries might be failing.
In the morning they opened up the battery compartment. The batteries weren’t leaking ooze or actively on fire - so they took that as a good sign. They hooked up a multimeter and the voltage looked good too. Prying off the caps, the water on the cells looked a bit low (honestly they didn’t know what they should look like, but low seemed possible.) They needed to run out and grab some distilled water to refill them and perhaps (they thought naively) swing by a mechanic and have a trained set of eyes take a look. The camp ground was full tonight anyhow so they had to move somewhere down the road. After zigzagging across town trying (and failing) to get someone to check out the rig, they ended up less than 100 miles down the road in Forrest City, Arkansas. Exasperated at the lack of professional help, Rinni exclaimed “Just drop me at the Walmart. They’ll have distilled water and a turkey baster! I’ll fill the damn batteries myself!!” (She was feeling rather empowered by her night of YouTubing at this point.) Walking into the store, Rinni noticed an automotive center with mechanics galore just sittin’ about, twiddlin’ thumbs. They said they’d be happy to take a look at the battery and add some water if needed. Rinni called Rosie to tell her to bring the rig out back and continued her shopping. She spent the next hour trying to buy three dollars worth of fried chicken, which - believe you me -is a difficult thing to do at this particular Walmart.
Meanwhile, after being scolded by Walmart security for parking too close to the sign for gas, (“How the ppl gonna kno whertuh buy gas?!” he’d questioned her, one eyebrow raised sucking tobacco juice through the gaps in his teeth.) Rosie drove the rig round to the auto center. Here she was greeted by a very sweaty man, who confirmed that the water in the battery was indeed low. After rummaging about for what may or may not have been distilled water, he started sloshing it in with reckless abandon. (So much for the neatly controlled turkey baster method, Rinni had offered!) Somewhere in this mess of activity, with the water and sweat pooling, a cable was grabbed and a shock sent through the mechanic. Two to three seconds of shaking later the mechanic dropped the leads and Rosie wondered what you do if your mechanic electrocutes himself on your rig. The mechanic shook it off like nothing happened and kept working as if he hadn’t noticed. Had he noticed? Rosie decided it was better to watch the swaying corn field butting up against the Walmart parking lot. That’s when the stalks parted and the corn people emerged. Half strutted into the Walmart though the employee door, half continued toward town. No one spoke or acknowledged that a dozen people appearing suddenly out of a corn field is a bizarre spectacle.
With the mechanic alive and the corn people dispersed, Rosie swung around to pick up Rinni and drive to the campground one parking lot over. At this point they were pretty creeped out by the general vibe of Forrest City and opted to keep the slide in for the night in case a quick get away became necessary. Plus the RVs were packed in like sardines anyhow. All they needed to do was hook up water (success!), electric (still pulling more power than expected, but operational!), and sewer....
Here’s what you need to know about sewer. There is a tank that holds all your poops and pees under the rig. The content of the tank (let’s just call it shit) is held back by a valve that moves out of the way if a lever is pulled. The shit then moves down a tube to where you attach a hose into a sewer hole in the ground. There is a cap at the end of the tube that you remove before you pull the lever and release the shit. To review, under no circumstances should shit be flowing if the lever is not pulled out.
Weary from the days events, Rinni grabbed the sewer hose and began loosening the cap. Shit immediately started flowing so she quickly replaced the cap before much escaped and checked the lever. Everything looked as it should. The man from the neighboring RV was nearby so Rinni asked if she was missing something. He laughed and responded “You got a problem. There’s nothing left to do but let it flow!” and called out the rest of his family to watch. Not willing to dump a third a tank of black water on the ground, she hooked the hose into the ground, opened the cap, and attached the other end of the hose to the rig as shit gushed out onto her arms. The little punk next door grinned like he just won a years supply of cotton candy, pointed at Rinni and said “There’s a turd.” For the record no fully formed turds were present, just poop piss juice, which honestly who’s to say what’s worse. With the hose connected the rest of the shit flowed into the sewer as it should. They diluted what escaped to the ground and cleaned up best they could.
They learned two things that night:
The valve on their black tank is not fully sealing.
Campgrounds are probably pretty covered in poop.
(Until this problem is addressed they’d be booking campgrounds with sewage hook ups at the site and be sure to connect with a FULLY empty tank.)
Thrilled to be leaving Arkansas behind them, the next morning Rosie and Rinni made their way towards southern Illinois.
Will mechanical issues continue to plague them? Will they be able to keep the poop in the tanks and the power turned on? Tune in next week to see what happens next!
