Water Water Everywhere

For some reason we seem to be rain magnets on our trip.  Sunday in Jasper continued the trend.  The rain was just too heavy for any outside trips unless we wanted photographs of gray clouds.  I decided to do a little oven test so made cinnamon rolls and used the rest of the rolls in the muffin pan when I realized I did not have a small cookie sheet or 8X8 square pan in the new trailer kitchen.  The results were rated acceptable by Dad even though I am not completely happy with the bottom element cooking too hot so there is burnt on the bottom before the tops get done.  I guess we will just have to keep practicing although we are rarely inside long enough for baking.

As most of you know we have been having water line troubles in the trailer. 

Incident #1 was in Katie & Jake’s driveway on Friday on our shake down cruise to Yellowstone when the pump starting just running and all the water ran out onto the driveway.  Steve took the trailer into a spot in Idaho Falls that is a dealer for our brand of trailer and the repair department fit us in that Saturday and repaired the fitting in one spot on the water line saying it looked like there had been a blow out on a tire on this trailer at one time because there were pieces of rubber underneath and fittings they used to repair it were a cheap variety.  He replaced the fittings with better ones and said we were good to go.

Incident #2 was Sunday morning still in Jake and Katie’s driveway when we had a repeat performance of the pump running and the water all running out on the ground.  It seemed to be related to the hot water heater somehow because it only happened when we turned on the hot water heater both times.  Jake loaned us a 5 gallon water container which we just used for water while in Yellowstone and took the trailer back into the place to get it fixed when we returned to Idaho Falls on Wednesday because it was SNOWING in Yellowstone.

This time the guy replaced both the hot & cold water lines and promised it was as good or better than when it came from the factory and we would never have another water problem as long as we owned the trailer.

Incident #3 occurred on Orcas island when we heard that now familiar pump just running sound and water leaking out the side of the trailer.  Now we were really frustrated with the repair guy in Idaho Falls and Steve had to take matters into his own hands because there was no place to have it fixed out on the island.   Luckily I have my own personal handy dandy Mr. Fix-it accompanying me on this trip.  Steve removed the panels in front of the water heater and could see the “never need to have it fixed again” connection no longer attached to the hose on the hot water line.  We did have to go to a small hardware store and buy a new wrench but soon the water lines were fixed again but now we had no hot water running out of the tap.  Steve is so smart he figured out there was some control valve on the hot water tank that must have broken through this whole process so he removed that and perfecto we now had hot water for showers and all was wonderful. Until . . .

Incident #4 occurred about one week later at Wabasso Camp ground in Jasper when I heard the fateful pumping sound and looked into the hot water heater storage area and saw the hose disconnected AGAIN laying on the ground.  At least this time I knew to quickly turn off the pump and give Steve the bad news.  Good thing Steve had not returned the panels to their rightful places yet.  He was kind enough to let me take these pictures of him fixing it! 

I am just happy Steve is so smart to be able to solve the problem.  He has decided there is some design flaw with the hoses that lets the cold water hose sit on the hot water hose connection and when we travel the weight of it jars the hot water connection loose.  For the time being the cold water hose is being held up with a piece of the ever useful baling twine in an attempt to prevent an incident #5.  We also plan a trip to the repair shop in Idaho Falls on the way back home for a return of at least some of our money because it was definitely not fixed as promised.  When I said “maybe this is the reason the other people sold this trailer” Dad said “maybe it is the reason we will sell it too!”

The type of water coming from the sky has continued to plague us as well – the first two days we were in Calgary we had those flat prairie summer thunder and lightning rain storms in the evening just about sundown.  The second day it even hailed.  We were driving back from the dinosaur museum and could see the big black cloud just hanging over the city and the sheets of black rain cloud coming down to the earth.

AND the day of our tickets to the Calgary Stampede Rodeo in the afternoon about half way through about 3 o’clock you could see that black cloud coming over and it just started pouring again.  Our seats were not in the covered section so we had to get up and go inside along with lots of other people to keep from getting soaked to the skin.  We just stood inside the door and could see to watch it on the jumbo-tron screen.  Luckily - as is the pattern of these types of storms - the sun was soon out and we only missed one event. 

Lots of people had left and not returned so using Katie’s trick I learned from the concert we went to together we just moved into better seats when the rain stopped.  We only got kicked out when the people came back three times before we got to finish the rodeo in much better seats than we started with.  The only problem was my butt got a bit wetter each time we had to sit down again on the seats wet from the rain since people had left them.  But it was worth it to be able to see better!  More about the Calgary Stampede later.