The mistakes we make when we get over confident. They are bound to happen I guess, unless we plan ahead and stick to the plan. So just what mistake did we make? Water! Wha?? water what do you mean?
We have been on the road for about 2 years and feeling pretty confident with our routine. We have all heard the recommendation to turn off the water pump before you travel. But we've never had a problem. We are careful at keeping knobs turned off, besides I like to have water in case I need to stop for a bathroom break. "OVER CONFIDENCE"
We didn't have a planned stop or destination, so we stopped at the local grocery store and stocked up in case we ended up dry camping for a few days. We also stopped to empty storage tanks and refill with water. Before we hit the road again we filled with a little over 3/4 of a tank (roughly 85 gallons) of fresh water because we did not know where the next stop would be. Water full, tanks empty, Cupboards full, refrigerator full, freezer full, All good let's hit the road.
Heading north on Hwy 101 we stopped at an overlook for lunch and a walk along the beach. All good no problems. There is a thrift store in the next town, the day is going great another stop with no problems. It's getting late so we break out the camping apps to find a reasonably priced RV Park for the night. We are in luck there is a park with an opening and it is just 38 miles away. Hwy 101 is a windy road with several speed changes, plus road construction to repair washouts. Needless to say we came across some rough roads. Should be fine things have been reinforced really well. It took us about a 1 1/2 hours to get to the RV park.
Guess what we found when we got there... Yep you guessed it water... Lots of water....
The freezer latch failed on the rough road, a package of asparagus flew out onto the counter and hit the kitchen sink faucet knob; turning on the water. The sink cover was on and some of the water managed to make it into the storage tank. Unfortunately though, most of it ended up on the floor and running out the door.
We installed a pressure tank that helps to maintain the water pressure while the pump is running. The tank holds about 1 3/4 gallons of water. If the pump had been turned off that would have been the extent of the leak, just 1 3/4 of a gallons. Nope, we had the pump on. The nearly full fresh water tank was now empty and we we're mopping up water, running the heaters with fans all night.
TIP: "TURN OFF THE PUMP" you can rinse the toilet later!
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