Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Desert View - Day 7 - A day without counting

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(CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE)

7:59 am - Wednesday - November 15th - Grand Canyon - 36º F, humidity 38%, wind 1 mph out of the  south by southeast.....partly cloudy with a forecast high today of 64º F.......we are off work the next two days.....time to explore!

Tuesday was our first day working different shifts......TLE had the 7:30 am to 12:30 pm shift......I had the 12 pm to 5:30 pm shift, so around 7:20 am I bid adieu to TLE and went about doing some chores.  The most important thing I would do Tuesday was to dump our black tank which had not been dumped since Wednesday November 1st when we departed Lone Rock.  Of course, we were gone from the coach from November 2nd to November 5th, but 14 days is still a long time.  It was a warm, windless morning so it was pleasant standing outside feeling the sun on my face as I completed our 'dump' process.  I don't know if I have ever gone through with you my personal process in dumping the black tank, so maybe this is a good time.   We have owned our 1982 Newell for almost 10 years now, and we have never had any problem with any odors emanating from our black tank so here is what I believe is the secret to our continued success in this department.  

On our black tank we have a female hose connection on the passenger side of the black tank to which I connect a hose I use specifically, and only for the purpose of flushing my tank.  The female end of the hose is attached to a nearby hose bib.  I always leave the gray tank dump valve open when hooked up, so I close it and then open the black tank dump valve (you don't want black water forcing its way back into the gray tank).  Once the tank begins to empty I turn on the water and let it flow into the black tank.......

 Female hose bib on passenger side of coach.....next to built in macerator pump (only pumps out gray tank)

 Gray water tank dump valve on left (open) and black water tank dump valve on right (closed at this time)

The hose I use to flush the black tank

.......once the black tank has emptied, I close the dump valve and let the tank fill up with water to about the half way mark then dump it again.  I go through this process three times before shutting off the water and just letting all the water empty out of the now 'clean' (the word clean is a relative term) black water tank.  Once it is empty then I close the dump valve and turn the water on again for about 5 seconds to put a layer of water in the tank.....anywhere from a 1/2" to 1".  Before I lock up the water bay door again I once again open the gray dump valve.  Then it is TLE's turn......she puts in 2 ounces of 'Pure Power Blue Waste Digester & Odor Eliminator' through the toilet.......



......we have been using Pure Power for over 10 years now and it works well for us.  I know everyone has their favorite black tank additive that works for them......Pure Power happensn to be our personal choice.  I can get it from Amazon Prime at a reasonable price shipped for free to wherever we may be at the time.

Once the black tank dump was 'buttoned up' I went to the next most important task of the day.....repair/replace the two cables which connect to our Winegard satellite dish at the LNB's, and on the other end to the two cables which go through our roof into the compartment above the drivers seat where our DVR is located.  We have been having a problem with one of them since we arrived at Gardiner where even though the signal appeared strong on both cables I was only connecting to 1/2 of all the 'transponders'.  Even though I would eventually get all my channels, it would take forever each time we would turn it on, and then I would get periodic messages on the TV screen advising the receiver had received no programming for 2,4,7, or 10 hours....eventually all my channels would disappear and I would have to push the 'RESET' button and start over....that takes about 15-20 minutes, which is very irritating.  Then we began to have problem with recorded programs disappearing from the receiver, so I finally determined I needed to go up on the roof to check and/or replace some of the cables and connections.  Instead of doing this job on a piecemeal basis I decided to just replace all the connections, and the one obviously bad cable......this took about 90 minutes, but at the end this fixed the problem.  I think I know which connection was the problem, but I am happy I replaced all of them.  Now I am going to add shrink wrap over each of the connections to keep the weather from degrading them as quickly this time.  At any rate, now I am connected to all the 'transponders' with a 99% signal strength.....that is the best we have had in over a year.  By the time I finished the 'cable project' it was time to get ready for work.

Since TLE had taken the VW to work I walked to work and arrived there by 11:50 pm......after counting in my cash drawer I headed out to my register (right next to TLE's) and relieved her.  She was on her way home in the VW by 12:30 and I was on my own.  It was a very pleasant afternoon NOT spent counting anything but change due each customer.  It was a moderately busy afternoon, but you will hear no complaints from moi about that.....for me it was a lovely, relaxing afternoon filled with pleasant, sometimes humorous conversations with customers of many nationalities.....exactly what I enjoy about working in a National Park.

At 5pm we (Cathy and I) locked the front doors, turned off the lights and then counted out our drawers.....Cathy is a floor supervisor, and also runs the Fountain/Deli during the day......and that was our Tuesday.....now for two off days to do some Grand Canyon exploring!  

Thanks for stopping by!

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1 comment:

  1. Nice to get those chores done and now do some exploring, have fun !

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