Thursday, 10 January 2019
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| today's route |
Our first stop today was the day care to drop off the dogs. Dexter knew as soon as we pulled into the driveway where we were and started getting really excited - not a good state for him as he starts over-reacting to almost everything when he's like that. Especially to other dogs, which is what were inside the day care. But he started settling down almost right away, which reassured Jo Ann into letting him stay. Thank goodness.
Laundry
The campground has laundry facilities (a washer and a dryer), but I got really tired of the seriously lackluster performance of the machines at the New Jersey KOA and decided to find a commercial place with onsite staff. I found one about 15 miles away, but because the route involved mostly country roads it took the best part of a half hour to get there - seeing more small Delaware towns and more flat Delaware countryside on the way.
On the way I saw another large flock of Snow Geese flying. Really so pretty.
It was a very nice laundromat, full of people who seemed to go there frequently - almost like Cheers, where everybody knows your name. Very friendly. Good, functional machines for an almost reasonable price. It's much easier for me to do laundry when the dogs aren't around, insisting I walk them every time I enter or leave the RV and pouting if I don't. Lily slept through it all in her perch by the upstairs window in the sun.
Groceries
Near the laundry was a Food Lion, a chain I'd found when I was in this part of the country before and retained a good impression of, so I stopped there for weekend supplies. My memory was right, it is a good chain with a reasonable selection and reasonable prices and pleasant staff. Hard to beat that. (I get absolutely sick of trying to find national brands at stores that insist on offering only their own version of the product. This place doesn't do so much of that.)
Propane
I took a different route back to a gas station close to the campground where I remembered trying to buy propane when I was here last spring. That was the time when I went to multiple places, none of which were able to convince their equipment to deliver propane into my RV until finally an RV dealership realized I was missing a gasket. Since I now still had the gasket they gave me then, I figured this place would be able to sell me the gas, which they did. Since bad weather is predicted for this weekend, and since the tank level was pretty low already, I didn't figure this was something I could afford to play chicken with.
Disaster
Then Lily and I went back to the campground so I could dump my waste tanks, and that's where things went wrong. The rule is to dump the blackwater tank first, then follow up with the graywater tank to help clean out the pipes. So I connected the hose to my tank, plugged the other end into the hole in the ground, and pulled the plug on the blackwater tank. Suddenly, all that waste started whooshing out of the hole in the ground into the surrounding area. I quick like a little bunny shoved the plug back in, but there I was with a disaster area, more unpumped in the tank, and my hose in all that yuck. It was clear the hole was plugged up, but it wasn't clear what on earth I could do next.
It wasn't all that far to the office, so off I went, still wearing the vinyl gloves but not wanting to take them off because I only had a few more pairs left and didn't know how many I'd need for the disaster mitigation work. The nice lady in the office said she'd send someone. I walked back to the disaster site. The campground host tootled up, looked at the situation, and said they'd have to call a professional. He offered to load me and my yucky hose up into his little golf cart so I could go somewhere to wash it off (the water being turned off at the dump site for the winter), but I only had about 10 minutes before I needed to leave for the dogs.
Instead I just packed the hose up in its container, yuck and all, thanked heaven that the weather was cold enough I wouldn't need to worry about the smell right away, and left to get the dogs.
Day Care redux
Jo Ann reported both the dogs had been great, that Gracie is wonderful (everybody who doesn't live with her thinks that) and yes, I could bring them back tomorrow too.
It was well after 4:00 by the time I got back to the campground, the sun was already getting low, the dogs wanted another walk, and after that mess earlier I wanted a drink. I decided to postpone dumping the rest of the tanks until I felt more able to cope with any problems.
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