RV Day!

Let the adventure begin

Sidenote: Pick-up of RV was April 7-9

We had a busy weekend so it was a tough order to fill when Keith said he wanted us to be on the road by 0400. I told him it was impossible but we could manage an 0800 departure. We met that deadline and was on our way to Chanute, KS!

We arrived a little later than Kansas RV Center was expecting us however it turned out to be no problem at all. We unloaded all our gear quickly so the truck could be taken for the install of the hitch. While it was gone, Keith & I had our "RV 101" lecture from several technicians. It was a lot to take in so I had the handycam rolling the whole time. Thought that way if we couldn't remember what they said about something we could watch the video for a quick refresher. 

The hitch was done in record time! After a lesson on how to hook it up, unhook it and how to release the hitch from the bed rails we were loaded up and ready to go.

We didn't go too far though! Our first RV adventure would be done less than a mile down the road for a couple of nights so that if there were any issues with the RV we could have service techs come out to help.

The campground was a nice little place. There were 30 paved stalls with electric and water hookups, with a dump station located south of the public restrooms and shower facility.  There is no charge for the first 48 hours and $10 per day afterwards, with a limited 10-day stay in any given 30-day period. The honor system is used for collection with a fee box located just south of the restroom/shower house. It was a very clean park and close to Wal-mart and a few other fast food places. 

After our 48 hour stay we had our first experience with the infamous...

This is where Keith takes over...

His first experience wasn't too bad really...

Looking at our RV, we have 2 non-drinkable water inputs not labeled.  
We think there are 4 holding tanks, but only 2 T-handles at the control panel.  
All unlabeled of course.  
There are also 2 T-handles under the RV, one for each discharge port.....

Keith sadly and quickly learned that you NEVER pull the T-handle at the discharge port until the hose is hooked up and routed to the dump station.  Only a small amount of POO leaked out when he took the cap off and with his Jedi reflexes, connected the sewage hose with the protection of his PURPLE kitchen lady gloves.

He hooked up the garden hose and filled one or more of the tanks and played with the T-handles until all of them were flowing clear water out of the sewage hose.   

Remember all of this is being done, not at an educational learning pace.  With three kids and a dog in the truck wondering, “WHEN ARE WE GETTING ON THE ROAD BACK TO NORMAN??”, there was no time for note taking or playing with controls.

With clear water drained from all tanks and clean up of the SMALL mess around the dump station Keith was excited about his first successful visit to the dump station. But wait....we still had one that registered 2/3 full indicating that there was still “matter” disrupting the sensors on the tank level gauge.

But since we knew they were all empty there was no need to worry about that mess.  The other tanks were registering empty on the panel so that was good enough for us!  Now it was time to put away the hoses and get on the road for the long haul home.

I realize this is probably not fascinating to the rest of the world but I was so impressed with the hose storage in the bumper of the RV. No space is wasted space! So cool.

Now that everything is flushed away, we're on the road!