Another Delay

Thankfully, the medical procedure turned out to show no abnormalities and we began in earnest to be ready to travel tomorrow.  However, this morning as I was standing in the kitchen preparing the pasta salad to go with the salmon I cooked yesterday, I heard a slight “pop” and at the same time felt a slight vibration under my feet.  These things were followed by a foul odor in the kitchen.  I got that feeling that we all have sometimes that things are just not quite right.

I opened the window to see if I could tell if the odor was coming from outside.  I immediately heard water running—not a good sign.  Gene and I went outside to discover water pouring out of the area around the galley tank valve.

The first thing Gene did after opening the valve and draining the tank, was to contact the office for a recommendation on a mobile repair service.  After calling the service recommended and leaving a message, the waiting began.  With no call back after 3 hours, he called the next number on the list.  He got an answer from this one, and he agreed to come by this afternoon about 4ish.  He was a little late getting here, but not bad, however, he announced right away that he couldn’t stay long.  He just wanted to take a quick look and maybe give us an idea what was going on.  He was here about an hour.  When I went outside to take a look myself, I was surprised to find the rear stabilizers lying on the ground.  I got back inside as quickly as possible.

Charles finally left and Gene came inside with the diagnosis—yes, indeed, the tank is cracked.  The good news is Charles thinks he can weld it back together.  He’s coming back in the morning.  If that doesn’t work, then we get to purchase a new tank.  But we’re not thinking about that right now.  Right now we are confident Charles can do his stuff, and then we can be back on the road again.

Charles was not really clear about what time he’ll be back in the morning.  We, of course, are not sure how long the repair will take.  So we are not counting on being able to leave here until Friday.

We are fortunate in that this happened while we were still near San Antonio where there are mobile repair services and many RV dealerships (3 of which are almost within sight of our campground).  It would have been very stressful for this to have happened in a Wal-Mart parking lot on the way to Big Bend where there was no sewer connection to empty the tank into.  Or worse yet, while we were at Big Bend where there would be no mobile repair service and perhaps no RV dealerships.

So, we are waiting to see what tomorrow brings.