Sideways

Raw sewage erupted from the sewage drain and splattered all over me when I pulled the handle to empty my black tank. Being covered in shit horrified me. There is only one dump station at the Eaton County Fairground. Usually, there is a sewage drain at each individual campsite. I observed a man in front of me dump his tanks and rinse his black tanks. The sewage drain was working. I attached my sewer hose and pulled the handle to open the black tank drain. Within a second, shit was flying everywhere. In a panic, I quickly pushed in the black tank handle to shut off the drain on my black tank. My reaction was instantaneous, but still not quick enough to prevent a shitshow.

All I can figure from the environmental disaster is that the guy in front of me must have lost an end cap to one of his sewer hoses which fell in and clogged the sewage pipe. The force and pressure of 55 gallons of raw sewage in the black tank trying to flow into the clogged four-inch drain blew my sewer hose right off the drain. I’ve spent over 600 nights on the road, and I have never been covered in shit before. I felt like I was in an episode of Schitt’s Creek, and I was Roland Schitt.

I found the campground manager. He didn’t even try fixing the drain. He said they had to call the city. After an hour, he was able to direct me to another secret sewage drain that was only a hundred yards from my campsite. I successfully drained 13 days of accumulated black and gray tank wastewater. I was on my way after a two-hour delay.

The rolling in schitt incident was an omen of things to come over the next two weeks.

 

Erica was waiting on an Amazon package that was not scheduled to be delivered until late afternoon. We had over 260 miles to drive this day. I decided to take off for St. Ignace and meet them up there later that evening. Today was the first time in three years, 45 states, and 17,000 miles that Chris, Erica, and I didn’t caravan together. So of course, this was the day that Chris’s truck broke down on the side of the highway.

I arrived at the Kewadin Casino parking lot where we were scheduled to stay for four nights around 6 pm. Shortly after getting set up, I received a text from Erica saying their truck had broken down. They managed to drive the truck in limp mode back to a Chevy Dealer. They hoped to get the truck fixed the next day and join me in St. Ignace. St. Ignace is just on the northeast side of the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan on the shores of Lake Huron.

For the next four nights, I stayed in the Kewadin Casino parking lot while waiting to see how Chris and Erica made out with the truck situation.

Chris thought he had his truck repaired the next day. After a few miles on the road, the truck motor shut down completely. This time they were unable to get the motor started. Several hours later they were towed back to the same Chevy Dealer. They had to have both the truck and 5th wheel RV towed. While they were enduring this crisis, I was in the casino drinking heavily and playing the slots. I was terribly worried about them being on the side of a highway where vehicles are traveling 80 mph right next to them.

The next day, Chris had his fifth wheel towed back to his parent’s house in Charlotte, Michigan. He parked the RV in his parent’s driveway. The truck was stuck at the Chevy dealer. The one diesel mechanic on duty was taking Friday off, and then the service department was closed over the weekend.

After four days in the casino park lot, I moved to a campground three miles south that had full hookups for the next five days while I waited for Chris’s repair situation to be resolved. The best-case scenario would be that the truck would be fixed by the following Wednesday. The worst-case scenario would be that the repairs would take a month while he waited on parts.

The campground was only 100 yards from Lake Huron. I walked a lot in St. Ignace, several miles into town, and to a wonderful local breakfast place, Kava Joes which was close by.

 

There wasn’t much I could do to help Chris and Erica while in St. Ignace. I was almost 300 miles away. There was no reason to come back. I had no place to park the RV. Chris and Erica were safe parking their RV in the driveway of his parent’s house. They couldn’t have broken down in a better place in the entire country. They were very close to Chris’s parent’s home. They were also very close to a Chevy dealer that was able to make a complicated repair.

We were supposed to head up into the upper peninsula (UP) of Michigan the following week. I could already see that we were not going to make it to the first spot at Picture Rocks in Christmas, Michigan. The second place was in Copper Harbor, at the very top of the UP almost 300 miles away. I didn’t feel like driving the Mountain Lioness Bus 600 miles for just 3 nights in Copper Harbor, especially on two-lane roads.

At this point, Chris still didn’t know whether his truck would be repaired in one week or a month. I decided to head south crossing back over the Mackinac Bridge on my way to Petosky, Michigan.

Chris’s truck was repaired by the following Wednesday. They replaced a high-pressure fuel pump. The rest of the fuel system was okay. In the model year before Chris’s truck, fuel pumps would disintegrate and strew metal filings through the fuel system, clogging up fuel lines and injectors. If this happened, the truck would not be repaired for at least a month. Chris knew about this issue and made sure he had the next year’s model that fixed that problem.

I have to give Chris kudos for staying positive and working through this serious problem. This wasn’t the type of problem like a cracked windshield or the washing machine leaking that is annoying. This problem was a show stopper, the motor would not start. When confronted with a problem, Chris thinks, how am I going to work through this.

When I am confronted with a problem, I imagine everything that can go wrong. That thinking is left over from my days as an electrical engineer, otherwise known as Murphy’s Law, what can go wrong, will go wrong. While this kind of thinking is necessary while performing engineering work, this type of negative thinking does not always carry over well into the rest of life. Chris and I would have made a good astronaut team. I would be planning for all the contingencies, and Chris would be saving our asses.

Chris and Erica decided to drive all the way up to Copper Harbor. They asked me if I wanted to still go, but at this point, I didn’t want to go farther north. The drive to Petosky from St. Ignace was only 50 miles with another 50 miles to Traverse City.

While I drove south to Petosky, Chris and Erica drove north to the Kewadin Casino and then all the way up to Copper Harbor the next day. I stayed in Petosky for eight nights while Chris and Erica drove around the UP of Michigan. The campground in Petoski was very nice, well laid out, with huge concrete pads, with wide roads to get in and out. There was a lot of road noise. I was right next to Highway 31.

 

 

 

We were already supposed to go the Traverse City in the middle of June. So I stayed in Petosky for 8 nights which dovetailed right into the beginning of our stay in Traverse City. Finally, after 17 days, Erica, Chris, and I met up in Traverse City. There were many hugs and smiles when we got back together. Everyone was really happy to see each other again.

After another wonderful dinner prepared by Erica and Chris, I walked back to my motorcoach in almost total darkness. That night, while standing out back behind my motorcoach, I observed more stars than I had seen in 17 years. Chris came by on his electric bike to check on me because I had not responded to Erica’s text asking if I got home okay. Chris found me at the back of the site staring straight up at the multitude of the stars in the heavens above. My friend Mishel described the scene the best when I told her what I had seen that night. Mishel said, “I’m sure seeing that many stars was euphoric. Like having a family reunion with our soul family.”

We spent six days together in Traverse City. We enjoyed several nice outings in Traverse City. One day Chris’s Mom drove up and spent the night. We had a delicious meal at an Italian Restaurant, which was a bit of a surprise in a tourist town. Everyone was relaxed, happy, and enjoying the day.

A couple of days later we went back to Traverse City with the dogs, Bandit and Rascal. Somehow they are not in the photo.

The last few weeks have been trying times. We finally got to play Jackbox, a tradition we started last year. Jackbox is a game you play together online, drawing silly photos and competing in stupid games which results in uncontrollable laughter.

 

Chris and Erica took off again a few days ago. I am staying in Traverse City for another week. They are staying at Harvest Hosts for four nights and then driving back to Duck Lake. I will meet them at Duck Lake for the 4th of July family reunion. They invited me for the third year in a row to their family reunion at Duck Lake. I am part of their family now.

This will be the last hurrah at the Duck Lake House. The family patriarch, Dave, passed away late last year. Dave owned the lake house at Duck Lake where the Reed family gathering is. We came up early this year to Michigan for his celebration of life in May. Dave was a wonderful man, very calm, kind, and one of the best listeners I’ve known. He was funny, with a great sense of humor. This 4th of July celebration marks the end of an era for the Reed clan.

I don’t know where I am going after Duck Lake. The weather is oppressively hot at my home in Florida. The RV is my home for now. Last week I told Erica and Chris as I left their campsite that I was going home. By home, I meant my RV. My use of the word “home” caught me by surprise. The meaning of the word was not lost on me. After several months on the road, the motorcoach has become home.

The weather has been fabulous up here, mostly 50s to 70s. For now, I am thoroughly enjoying the cool weather. Some days I want to go home tomorrow. On other days I don’t want to go home for a while. I will figure out where I am going next when I figure out where I am going next. For now, I am just enjoying the moments.

I’m in a transition on how I am going to travel in the RV. I don’t want to go driving all over the country anymore. I’ve spent over 600 nights on the road, driving through 45 states, and over 42,000 miles. I’ve been to most places I want to go. Many places I’ve been to more than once like Grand Teton National Park.

Paso Robles passing away last autumn was a real blow to me. Robles was one of the main reasons I bought the RV, so I could travel with my cats. I almost sold the RV after I lost her. Robles was a great travel companion. Now I think I want to just go to nice RV resorts and stay there for two to three weeks and just relax. In particular, I want to go to RV parks with working sewer systems.

As you can tell from this post, RV life is not an endless mishmash of vacations. Multimonth RV trips require moving your life on the road. This life is not all sunshine and lollipops. Normally I don’t write about the trials and tribulations. People want to read the happy stuff. But over the last month, there was really no way to describe what was going on without talking about the obstacles we encountered.

RV life is not all that different from life at home There are bills to pay, groceries to buy, laundry to wash and meals to prepare. There are obstacles both on the road and at home. Overcoming obstacles can be more difficult on the road.

On the road, you have the added tasks of figuring out where to stay and the roads and directions to get there. There are many roads the Mountain Lioness Bus is too big to drive on. There is always a constant amount of background stress while traveling.

Still, the freedom of the road is wonderful and mind-expanding. You are in new surroundings, with new scents, new sights, new places to eat, new places to sleep, new places to wake up, immersed in new experiences. Keep looking up. Live life outside. Stay full of wonder. Life is good.

The Way – Fastball