Another season ends . . .

Here it is, mid-October, and the RV is washed, winterized, and tucked away in the barn until next year . . . how sad!

The winterizing process went fairly smoothly, with just one small incident.  Last year, our one mistake was that we forgot to blow out the water line to the icemaker, and the sprayers at the kitchen sink and the toilet.  We remembered the icemaker line in time to thaw the small bit of ice with a hair dryer, but the sprayer at the kitchen sink cracked and we had to replace it.

So this year, we made sure to drain the icemaker line, and I made a point to remember the sprayers.  We were blowing out the supply lines; first the kitchen, then the vanity & shower, and last was the toilet.  I opened the valve so that Tom could start the compressor, and was removing the sprayer when it flew out of my hand . . . and you guessed it . . . right into the toilet and through the open valve to the black tank!!  Oh great, how do we get it out of there??!!  Of course, I didn’t have to just listen to Tom ask “Why did you do that?!” . . . I had to listen to all three of the “men” in my house . . . as if I did it intentionally!

We started out dumping buckets of water into the toilet to see if that would wash it out, with no luck, and then decided we had to put a hose down the toilet to fill the tank completely.  Filling the tank halfway didn’t do the trick, so we kept going until the black tank was completely full (and re-calibrated our tank level indicator in the process – since it showed only half full when water was backing up into the toilet!).  With the tank full, Tom opened the valve and let the water fly . . . and the sprayer handle flew out with it!  Success!

With that done, we were able to finish up the winterizing process and get the RV parked in the barn . . . it added a couple extra hours to the process, but luckily wasn’t a disaster . . . and I’m pretty sure we won’t repeat it next year!