Definition of life in a motorhome ......

… is a series of near disasters!

So the next near disaster was avoided as we were leaving for our flight to Detroit. Colectiva has a hose fitting that allows you to rinse out the black tank – the toilet tank – with a high pressure spray if you connect up a hose to a residential water supply. Long ago, I bought a hose splitter – a “Y” junction so I could hook up two hoses to a single water supply. Each leg of hose has a shut-off knob so you can turn off each or both legs – you could have one running and the other shut off.

So, one leg was supplying water to Colectiva’s water system. The other leg was supplying the water for the black tank rinse feature. The Woman had requested that the tank be rinsed as she decided it hadn’t been rinsed for a while. So, I rinsed it out twice while we were packing for Detroit, and then shut off the water at the splitter on the tank rinse leg.

As we were getting ready to leave, I happened to notice that the water level in the toilet was high – about half way up the bowl. Usually there is only about an inch of water in the bottom of the bowl. When I hit the foot pedal to empty the bowl, an air bubble burped up, but the water didn’t move. Luckily I am getting quicker at diagnosis of issues – and realized that the black tank was completely full of water!

I ran outside and flipped on the macerator to empty the tank – and shut off the water at the source. I pulled off the splitter, and sure enough, the “shut-off” knob, even when in the “off” position, still let a small stream of water through.

So, had I not noticed the water in the bowl, the faulty splitter would have continued to shoot water into the black tank, until the toilet bowl overflowed – and would have continued for the entire 3 days we were gone. For the record, the Woman is really happy that I noticed that!

But then it gets better. We were off to the Humphrey terminal (named after the great senator and unsuccessful Presidential candidate, Hubert Humphrey – like the old Vikings domed stadium) and as the car was pulling up to the drop off outside the ticketing counters, my phone chimed the receipt of a text message. The message was from Southwest Airlines and indicated our flight to Chicago had been cancelled. Since we were already there, we just went inside to deal with it.

The agent told us that due to hurricane weather in Chicago and the related delays in flights, the amount of air traffic awaiting landing exceeded its capacity, therefore airlines were being told that certain flights that hadn’t yet departed would not be allowed to depart – including ours.

Southwest told us that the next flight to Chicago would still get us there in time to catch our connection to Detroit, as it also was delayed. The only problem was that flight was full, so we could only be booked standby. However, the agent told us that since flights were delayed and cancelled, it was very likely that people already booked on that flight would cancel rather than face the likely scenario of being stranded in Chicago for the evening. So we booked that flight, and began our patient waiting game to see if we would get on.

As the hours went by, more and more flights were being announced as having been cancelled flying out of Chicago and the mass of people in the gate started getting smaller, which cheered us up a bit given our predicament. But our smiles were a bit premature. About the time that the gate agents had told us that we would begin boarding the plane – which was attached to the jet way – the agent came on the PA and told us that the flight had also been cancelled – our last chance of getting into Detroit that evening – all other connections out of other cities had already had their last flights for today.

The line at the counter for rebooking was at least 50 people long – I chose rather to call Southwest and see what we could do. I managed to get us a flight out at 6 in the morning – the Woman not at all happy by the way – which would still get us into Detroit with just enough time to make the 50^th anniversary bash. I also managed to find a hotel near the airport that had complimentary shuttle service at a rate that was less than the cost of a cab ride back and forth from Colectiva for the night – don’t ask about the room, it wasn’t the Waldorf Astoria, but also not nearly as scary as it sounds. So, we are hoping all goes well tomorrow.

Talk to you soon!