I did make it to my campsite and got settled in before nightfall,
despite getting stuck in rush hour traffic on Thursday.
I happily made my sewer and power connection, I wanted to
wait a day or two and see if I would go ahead with the de-winterizing.
I used my electric heater and again Wanda was toasty warm
and I was able to keep my furnace turned off all weekend. Friday’s sunrise was spectacular
and I did get a shot of that.
Friday was my plop day as I didn’t do anything. I just
rested and relaxed and didn’t accomplish anything. (No pic of me relaxing as I was
. . . you know . . . relaxing.)
Saturday I did go ahead with the de-winterizing and everything
went well. I was excited and took it slow and sure to make sure I did things
right. I was even able to get hot water going well and yes have that shower I had
wanted to do. It was nice to do the simple things others take for granted like:
·
Wash my hands in the sink.
·
Do my dishes in the sink.
·
Have a shower.
·
Turn the tap on to have running water waiting
for me.
·
Pooping in my own toilet.
I enjoyed and savoured each and every one of these niceties
at the moment. After all it had been five months since I have been able to do
these.
Sunday morning, my water was flowing, but only through my
internal tank. The hose from the tap was frozen and blocked. That was okay, as
I wanted to keep my water pump running to ensure that it would be fine and
working. It was working, and water was flowing all day.
Sunday was the day that I got around to doing my spring
cleaning. I slowly worked my way from the back of Wanda through to the front. I
looked in each cupboard and storage space inside and cleaned and evaluated if I
really needed this or that. I was able to toss enough things out make space to
put a few things away that had been constantly out and beside the bed.
I didn’t get around to pulling out things from underneath
Wanda or in the back of the truck, as it was too cold for me to enjoy pulling
things out and sorting through them outside. I decided to put that off till another
trip to another campsite.
I went to bed with the heat going and yes a bit worried
about the water pump, as one of, and (the only one I have identified) of Wanda’s
design flaws is the placement of that water pump. The water pump was not under
the sink, where I had thought and expected it to be, it was instead under the
trailer next to the water tank. By the time I discovered and realized this, I had
already de-winterized.
Sunday night I got up a few times and ran a bit of water
and all seemed well, the last time I did this was at 2 am. When I got up at 4am
and tried, the water pump did not come on. Now this either means that the pump
is toast or that a bit of ice has frozen in the pipe before it; who knows . As
is the case with hypothermia victims, it is not dead until it is warm and dead.
That won’t really be till later this week.
To add fun to this adventure this morning there was a
steady trail of ice down my sewer pipe which prevented me from closing the
blackwater valve. I was able to get the greywater valve closed though. I will
try again tonight and hope that enough of the ice has melted that I can do
this. I still need to defrost and drain the ice still in the drain pipe hose. Both
of my water hoses are in the bathtub defrosting and draining.
So as it stands this weekend was a bust, yet in truth I don’t
know. It may have worked I have left the heat on in Wanda at minimum on hopes
that the pump will be okay. If the pump is toast that means that I may be
without running fresh water until early June, when I get Wanda fixed. Due to
the placement of the water pump, I can’t replace it myself, not without a
proper shop and someone who is more tool-savvy than me.
The one constant is that I will survive and that this too
shall pass. I will get through this and push through until my goal of debt
freedom is achieved. I have no choice but to move forward and press on. There
is no fallback position, there is no cavalry on the way and reinforcements are
not coming.
I know that I got myself into this mess and that I must get
myself out of it. I take ownership of my mistakes and the consequences of my
actions and decisions. I am taking actions to make my life better and get out
of this mess.
In life, with choices, you make them and must live the
outcome. Sometimes your decisions were good and sometimes they weren’t. All you
can do is evaluate what went wrong, learn from your mistakes, deal with the
aftermath of them and move on.
The last challenge is to forget about your mistakes but
it is hard when as you look back on your life you seem to see nothing but a
string of bad choices and mistakes, some of which hurt and affected only you
but others affected other people in your life.
Thankfully this mistake only affected me. In truth I should
have waited a week or two to de-winterize, but I was too eager to have that
shower, to have running water.
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