Settling Into Granny Digs
By now, I thought I’d made peace with my salmon-carpeted granny palace. I’d replaced or repaired nearly everything: propane, batteries, toilet, furnace, water heater, fridge. Basically the entire interior except the pink curtains. Should’ve let that RV roll down a cliff and saved myself the trouble.
So when campsite maintenance knocked to say, “We’re shutting off the water for a few hours due to a main break,” I figured, Fine. No problem. I ventured out, found a corner store, scoped out a patio restaurant by the lake, and daydreamed about biking to the grocery store (uphill both ways, as everything in B.C. seems to be). By 4 p.m., I was ready to cook dinner.
No Water, No Problem… Right?
First snag: I went to wash my hands and… nothing. Hmm. Maybe they shut off my tap outside. Crank, crank. Righty tighty, lefty loosey? Or is plumbing backwards? I twisted until it stopped, then backed it off a little. Inside, still nothing.
I called the office:
“Hi, no water at my site.”
“Oh, maintenance went home for the day.”
“Wait, what? They said it’d be off a few hours. That was 9 a.m. It’s 4 p.m.”
“Yes, sorry. They’ll continue tomorrow.”
Great. I hadn’t filled my holding tank. Why would I? Surely a park can’t run out of water, right? Wrong. Cue me rationing my bottled water jug (which took up half my counter space) and debating whether to “dry flush” the toilet. Spoiler: I did. Desperate times.
Old Faithful… Literally
Morning came. Maintenance was back. “A few hours,” they promised again. Fine. I biked up the endless hills for groceries, came back sweaty and triumphant, and found my own personal Yellowstone National Park.
Water shot up above my trailer, arcing in the sunlight like Old Faithful. Only, this was my trailer. My rainbow of doom.
I ran to the tap, learned (the hard way) that yes, it’s righty tighty, and flung open my “basement” door. Inside? Floating chaos. My storage had become a swimming pool.
Poly-B, Meet Dee
“Ah, you’ve got poly-B pipes,” maintenance said, shaking their heads. “That stuff gets brittle. Didn’t anyone tell you to use a water regulator?”
Nope. Reception hadn’t. My “seasoned” RV friends hadn’t. Apparently this little nugget of wisdom lived in the fine print.
Lesson Learned
Forget the curtains, the carpet, the fridge. The #1 thing every camper needs is a water regulator.
Because water will always find you. And in an RV, it’s never your friend.
In the off chance you forgot to fill your fresh tank, always keep a jug of water on hand for flushing the toilet or washing hands.
