Connecticut - Day 30

Mystic KOA
Friday, 30 November 2018

The temp fell below freezing last night so I didn't have any water coming through the hose into the RV this morning.  About 6:30 or so I unplugged the water hose, hoping the ice inside would melt sooner if it was disconnected, and turned on the inside water pump instead.  But today the pump wouldn't stop running.  Well, it ran when I turned on the water.  Then it kept turning itself on at about 20-second intervals.  I thought maybe it was just adjusting to having water in the tank again and would stop after a bit.  But it didn't.  And then I finally noticed that when the pump ran, water ran out of the hole where the water hose was supposed to be attached.

The RV has 2 separate water holes: the one that the hose attaches to and stays attached because it's creating indoor plumbing from a city water spigot; and the one that goes directly to the water tank where water is stored to be pumped out by the water pump when I'm not connected to a city water spigot.  The water pump isn't supposed to have any connection to the city water source - but mine does now.

This is apparently part of the problem I was hoping we got fixed earlier this month when the flow from the city water spigot was passing through the pump and filling up my water tank.  The RV repair guys said I might have a messed-up valve in the pump that would need to be replaced, but I thought we had it fixed without doing that.  Apparently we didn't.  And now I'm going to have to find an RV repair place in New Jersey as an early item of business when I get down there.  Quel nuisance.

It was raining earlier this afternoon, and now it's snowing.  Doubt if it will stick, but I'm guessing it's gotten colder than the 40°+ predicted for today.

The woman who sold me the t-shirt yesterday suggested I use the Tappan Zee Bridge to bypass New York City tomorrow.  She was afraid I'd run into traffic at the sports stadium that hosts football games for both the Jets and the Rams (I think she said), not to mention the City traffic, even on a Saturday.

But when I tried to get driving instructions, the mapping program refused to send me to New Jersey by any route other than straight through Manhattan.  Why would ANYbody want to go through Manhattan on their way to somewhere else??  So I had to be very creative to get the directions I wanted. 

And then I discovered the program insisted I take the New Jersey Turnpike almost all the way through the state to the next campground.  The problem with that is that the turnpike is a toll road, while right next to it is I-295 which is free.  They're parallel so it's not like one is a more direct route than the other.  Weird.  So I had to be even more creative and made up my own directions. 

I don't mind toll roads when they're the obviously faster route, and I'm already planning to take the Tappan Zee Bridge (toll bridge) and the Garden State Parkway (toll road) and the NJ Turnpike (toll road) for part of the way.  But I can't understand why the mapping program refused to present I-295 even as an alternative to their preferred route.  So I guess I'll find out tomorrow if I've outsmarted myself or not.  But it took me ages to get the route figured out. 

I'm only going 260 miles - normally about 4-5 hours of driving time.  But with traffic, the mapping program predicts an extra 3-4 hours.  Hoping that's just because today is a work day, and because it routed me through major cities, and that on a Saturday by an alternate route it might work out better.  But I'll need to leave before 8:30 tomorrow morning just to be sure, and even that may not be early enough with the short days we're having now.

Another adventure, another experience.