Weekly Mileage #61

Tuesday we finally made it to park day. Ocean loved having the run of the splash park.

Monday I had another sore throat in the morning, so no bike time. That afternoon I went to a chiropractic appointment and drove through an absolute deluge for 10-15 minutes- slow driving, wipers on high, could barely see the cars around me. Then I passed out of the storm and it was barely sprinkling. A few minutes later, I noticed that the ground was dry- the storm hadn't hit that part of town. So crazy.

Monday afternoon we had a hail storm come through

Tuesday I woke up early enough to exercise, but used the time instead to switch insurance companies for the RV. There's only a couple insurance companies that will cover you if you rent out your RV, and our previous insurance company wasn't one of them. It's stupid, since they only cover you when you're not renting your RV, but whatever.

Wednesday I did 10 miles on my bike- woohoo!

Thursday we were going to hike to the swimming hole, but the forecast called for rain with lightning. We had a very wet week last week, so I believed the forecast and decided it was safer not to go for a hike. I walked on the treadmill instead, and it only sprinkled in the morning and I never saw lightning, though Sunshine said she saw some. Better safe than sorry, though.

Friday I wanted to go for a hike after dropping Sunshine off at co-op, but I had too many things to do, so I opted to try to work through some of my to-do list.

Saturday I'd planned on taking the boys hiking for Kids to Parks day, but had some last minute schedule changes that made it impossible to fit it in. Sunshine was supposed to go on a campout with the YW Friday night and then go to a camp clinic in the afternoon, but the campout was canceled because of the rain and flood alert we were under. So I had to drop her off at a meeting spot just before noon, which interfered with my original plans to go to one of the Kids to Parks day activities at Shenandoah. I'd thought perhaps we could just hike at a local park, but the deluge we had Friday made me realize everything would just be too wet- a lot of the trails were closed.

In the end, not hiking was a good thing. It always takes longer than I think it will to make sure the RV is ready to go, and I spent the morning doing last minute cleaning and re-making the beds. I then started on the pre-rental inspection list and ran into a huge problem minutes before the renters who were planning on having our RV for a week showed up.

Everything checked out fine on my list, and then I remembered that last time I turned the water pump on water only trickled out, so I wanted to see what was going on there. Water only trickled out of the faucets again, but I could hear water gushing somewhere else. I turned everything off and looked by the water heater, where sure enough, I could see water coming from under the cabinet it's in. I removed the access hatch, shone a flashlight in, and immediately saw the problem: a 3 inch gash in the water heater tank.

Now, you may remember that we took the RV to NC recently and we had our first renters, so why was this the first time we'd noticed this?

Our best guess is this: We had some problems with the lines freezing over the winter, which we discovered when we did an overnight trip to take pictures of everything for our how to use our RV book. We took it to the dealership, they replaced something by the inlet, and said it was good to go. We took them at their word (big mistake) and didn't check anything until we were in NC and the hot water wouldn't work. I thought it was the pilot light out or something, but Mr M took a look and said there was some valves that were shut off and keeping the water from reaching the water heater. He turned them on and we thought we were good to go, though we didn't run the water right then (also a mistake).

Our first renters didn't use the water, they only used the RV to sleep in at a family reunion, so no problems were discovered during the rental period.

It wasn't until I tried to see what was going on with the water pressure that the issue came to light. With the bypass valves now open, water entered the tank and then started pouring out the hole.

I contacted the dealership, but the earliest we can bring it in is Tuesday and it'll take a couple days to replace the water heater tank (and cost a lot of money) so our renters are out of luck. At least they were super nice and understanding about everything. I offered to help them find another RV to rent, but they said they'd just change their reservations from campsites to cabins.

One good thing is that I discovered it before they left, rather than them discovering the problem after they'd already picked up the RV and driven to their campsite.

And where was Mr M during all this? At drill, in a completely different state, unable to do anything.

Not that he could do anything anyway- plumbing issues like this are beyond both of us- but the physical support would have been nice. We won't be sending out any more rentals when he's gone- it's just too stressful. Thankfully, I'd engaged a babysitter to watch the boys (Sunshine was at her camp clinic, remember) because I was supposed to take the renters out on a test drive required for insurance purposes and our peace of mind. So at least the boys weren't climbing all over me, wanting attention and getting into everything, which would have stressed me out so much more.

Ahh, the joys of owning an RV.

I will say, between writing the how to use our RV book for renters, going through the pre-rental checklists, and dealing with this water issue, I have a much better understanding of how all the systems work. So there's that, at least.

Weekly Mileage
Wednesday- 10.00 miles on the bike
Thursday- 2.75 miles walked
    total- 12.75 miles

5 hikes towards #52hikechallenge

68.64 foot miles towards #365milechallenge

100.00 bike miles towards #365milechallenge