Our Recent Camping Mishaps Had A Water Theme

BrianZ

0ur recent New England trip was wonderful, but we'll also remember it for our comedy of errors with all the little water-related mishaps that we encountered (or created).  Maybe we were rusty after over six months of no camping, but feel free to laugh at some of our stupid mistakes.  

See the list below..

1.  First was the above leaky bleeder screw on Alde hot water mixing valve, due to a broken washer.  Not funny, just a nuisance, or maybe funny that I might have over tightened it & split the washer, causing a new type of leak.  Fixed.

2.  We had a leaking A/C drain pan, presumed due to inadequate front/rear leveling (tongue not low enough), but I still need to check the pan for cracks.  More on this later.

3.  Somehow I managed to leave the kitchen faucet on (uhoh) until the gray tank overflowed into the shower pan from the drain.  This surprised my wife (understatement), who was on the toilet at the time & had no idea what was happening(!); but I was thankful she was there, or it could have been a lot worse.  I apologized as best I could for the unsettling interruption & her wet feet.

4.  After draining off 6G of excess gray water from the self-induced flood into a spare 6-gal portable waste tank (I finally got to use that thing!), the rather loose-fitting lid popped off of the tank [twice] when I bumped it against something while lifting it into car, then later into trailer while at the dump station to pour into the toilet.  Somehow, I managed to quickly get the cap back on after losing only enough to soak my shoes (Now I got wet feet too! Karma?).  The large cap is located near the bottom of the container, where water pressure is greater, presumably to create even more memorable laughs.

5.  One evening, the city water supply stopped, which we initially thought was a campground issue, but it was actually due to "our" failure to lock the pedestal valve lever handle into the open position (I don't think I did the plumbing that day).  The campground on-call guy was fairly polite, but probably annoyed with us.  Fortunately, this was at a different campground from previous incidents 3 & 4, so thankfully he couldn't have witnessed those.

6.  At some point, the water hose quick release connector spontaneously just fell apart, after losing its tiny set screw that holds all it's parts together.  This was the same campground as #5, though we didn't bother the on-call guy to report that we had a screw loose.

7.  The last two nights we had severe thunderstorms with lightning & heavy rain.  The first one caused two brief brownouts, but that made me thankful for having installed an Electrical Management System just a couple of weeks earlier.  On the next automatic restart after 15 secs, we did see that it reported a "P4" low voltage error code for Previous power loss.

Regarding item #2 above, the water dripping from the A/C:  The campsite was slightly uphill, but we wanted to remain hitched for a quicker getaway on this return overnight stop, so we compromised by putting blocks under the wheels to compensate & called it good enough, with a storm about to let loose, without even bothering to check the electronic level sensor ..  

I thought it would be sufficient, and it was for the frig but not enough forward tilt for the A/C unit's drain pan that drains towards the front.  After a while, we started getting a drop about every 2 seconds dripping from the rear edge of the A/C cabinet, due to the high humidity.  Rather than going out in the storm to level the trailer, I did my best McGuyver impression by taping a ziplock bag under the drips to catch the water; then cut off the corner & stuffed it into a piece of plastic tubing, & ran the tubing out the window locked in the open position.  It worked well..

Most of these water related incidents happened on the way home, but they haven't "dampened" our fond memories from the trip.

This trip will also be remembered as the one with many water issues, where we couldn't manage to hold back the water, except for when we actually needed the water to flow!

"Live & Learn", but have fun doing so! And don't worry, if you forget something, your T@B will most likely let you know!

Have any of your camping mistakes ever had a theme?

ChanW

Well thank you @BrianZ! I now know to add a ziplock bag, some tape, and a short (medium?) length of hose to my emergency bag!

Ingenious.

I don't blame you for avoiding going out in the storm. Lightning, hail, tree branches, flying rabbits - all things you should avoid, if possible.

fstop32

@BrianZ, I loved the MacGyver technique!

Denny16

Gaffer tape used by videographers works well, and does not leave any tape residue behind once removed.
cheers

BrianZ

Yep, thanks, good thought @Denny16.  But, when the water is flowing, you grab whatever is handy; and I took it down the next morning with no problem. At least the plastic packaging tape wasn't as bad as duct tape for leaving a mess though.

One thing I discovered, however, after using gaffer's tape on the display cable for my EMS install, is that it doesn't stand up well at higher temps.  After using it to tape the cable to the side of the plastic wheel well (black on black so it disappeared), I later found it coming lose on a 90°+ day.  It truly is only meant for temporary use.