The Dark Side of RVing

I’m sure that most of you have seen the GO RVing commercials on t.v. that show a happy family exploring a myriad of wilderness opportunities across our country. The too enthusiastic campers are always smiling, laughing, and appear carefree while traveling to their destination. And, I have to admit, as an owner of a compact travel trailer, my family and I have a wonderful time camping throughout the Western United States. It’s nice for us to escape from the “rat race’ occasionally to commune with nature, swim, hike, bike, trike, and sit around the campfire eating s’mores.

What they don’t show you is the “dark side” of RVing – cleaning out the waste holding tanks. The trailer owner’s manual makes it seem like it’s not a big deal to empty this reservoir. In fact, I’m sure that some smart cookie within the RV industry created the mundane sounding terms like “Black water” and “Gray water” so as not to turn off potential customers. What they don’t tell you is that the black water tank is a euphemism for a large, sealed container that holds your family’s excrement. Plus, another downside that they don’t mention on the sales floor when purchasing your RV is that you, as a proud new owner, get to empty these aforementioned tanks by yourself. Whoo hoo!

Today was the day that I got the pleasure of emptying the vat of waste from the trailer. A little gauge inside the trailer was glowing “full,” so I figured I couldn’t put off the task any longer. Luckily for me, we have a public RV dumping facility located conveniently just down the road from our house. “Easy as pie,” I thought. So, I hitched up the trailer and set off to clean out the holding tanks.

I arrived at the dumping facility and started pulling out the various hoses, tubing, connectors, disposable gloves, etc. that I would need to do the job. Then, I connected a handy, see-through sewer-dumping device to the trailer. I pulled the handle on the black water tank and voila! I won’t go into the graphic details, but to my amazement, the smelly contents of the trailer tank reservoir flushed out. After a brief time, the draining stopped. Now it was time for the next step in the process: Rinse.

But, before I could proceed, I needed to connect a special valve to my tank rinsing hose. I located my brand new, fancy $7.00 hose valve. I had to use this special valve because many public dump sites cut off the threaded ends of their hoses (for some reason that I just can’t fathom), and you cannot rinse your RV tanks out easily without it. Anyway, I screwed my hose onto my holding tank cleaning device and onto the valve. Then, I squished the shiny, made-just-for-this-situation (according to the salesperson) valve on to the cut-off public hose. I pushed the button to start the water pumping and … KABOOM!

The fancy valve that I bought exploded into two pieces, and broke apart from the public hose. Water sprayed out in all directions, soaking my face, hair and glasses. Startled, I attempted to squeeze the hose and valve back together, but only succeeded in creating an even bigger mess. Water spurted from the hose again like when the stem breaks off a bulging water balloon. I got another burst of wetness in my face, and the remaining dry portions of my body received an inadvertent shower. I was now soaked, and the water continued to flow. I dropped the hose, and ran to seek shelter behind my trailer until the water stopped.

Thankfully, the water eventually ceased flowing. I decided that, after the pandemonium I had just experienced, I would just pack up my toys and go home. I would contact my local RV dealer, and have them complete the tank cleaning and winterizing of my trailer instead. Ah, the joys of RVing!

(Original Posting Date - September 6, 2009)