Maybe I should have stayed home....

Well our annual trip out to Abram lake to go camping started out a little rocky.  It began with a sick child waking us up at 6:30am because he was sick and Bob ended up taking him up to emerg to be treated for strep throat.  He stayed behind with his dad, and I took the other 4 children out to the lake.

This has already been a beautiful summer even if I have only enjoyed a few weeks of it to date.  When we arrived in Sioux Lookout it was in the plus 30s with the humidex.  Bob had brought the camper up the day before and got everything set up for me.  We always have a site with electricity, water and sewer hookup.  This is as close to roughing it as I have endeavoured with this gaggle of children and my need for my flat iron.  So the minute we arrive we turn on the air conditioning.  Make sure the doors and windows are closed and wait for the coolness to settle on our sweating, stinky skin. Once everything was transferred from my Suburban to the camper and then unpacked we were still waiting for the coolness to settle in.  It wasn't happening.  Long story short, the air conditioner is not working.  So, we opened all of the windows and thankfully the fan system does work, so we had some air circulating to make things bearable. The following torrential down pour with accompanying hail storm also cooled things off that evening.  No hail damage where we were, but 5 minutes down the road there was.  Lucky us.

I turned the water on outside to get it flowing to the camper.  I checked the kitchen water tap and out flowed a pinkish water.  Bob forgot to flush the antifreeze stuff out of the pipes before he left.  That's okay.  I just let it run for a bit.  After I had done this I headed outside.  I quickly noticed that there was water running from under my bathroom outside the camper.  I yelled to Jessica to check the bathroom!  Well the shower taps were on and water was spraying around the bathroom.  If that weren't bad enough, let me tell you the real kicker.  Because we don't use the teeny tiny little shower in the camper, I had the brilliant idea to put a plastic shelving unit in there.  The other brilliant idea was for Dom and Noah to put all of their clothes in plastic laundry baskets, which fit perfectly into the plastic shelves.  So, that being said, your next visual should be two laundry baskets of clean clothes getting sprinkled with pink water.  When her brilliantness put the shelving unit in the shower/tub I guess I inadvertently hit the tap to the on position and there you have it, wet bathroom, wet clothes.  I hung some of the clothes up and had to wash some others.  Nothing stained with the pink stuff thankfully.

Fast forward to a week later.  I knew I was going to have to drain the waste water tanks in the camper.  I had never done it before, but I know as my favourite saying goes, "it isn't rocket science".  So my dear brother in law Pete came over to supervise.  He told Jessica that she should hold the sewer hose/pipe to make sure it stays in the ground while the liquids go down.  So picture Jessica lying under the camper on a towel holding the sewer pipe which runs from the camper into the ground.

Next, I don a pair of rubber gloves for this task.  Again under Pete's watchful eye, I crawl under the camper and I pull the "black water valve".  For those of you who don't camp in a camper this would be for anything that comes from the toilet.  We pretty much have a don't poop in the camper policy.  There is a lovely bathroom/shower house meters from our camper.  There was a short gushing sound and then nothing. Pete says uh oh, it must be blocked.  I'm thinking "crap", no pun intended.  Then we notice.  When my dear sweet husband brought the camper up, he hooked up  the sewer hose/pipe thingy so I wouldn't have to, however we have an outdoor kitchen which has a separate tank/drain.  He hooked the hose up to that drain, not the one I was just yanking on.  We hadn't used the outdoor sink, so there was nothing to drain there.

Now here is the problem.  I pulled the black water valve, and black water did move.  It filled up about a 6 inch section of about 3 inch pipe before I could quickly close the valve back up.  Thank God the pipe cover was securely in place.  But now I have about 6 cups of black water to deal with in that pipe.  There are groans all around.  So I grab a big black garbage bag.  Wrap the entire pipe unit up in it, remove the pipe cover and allow the black water to flow into bag.  I was keeping my rubber gloved fingers crossed as this was not a brand name garbage bag, but some bargain special.  I grimaced as I heard and felt the black water flow.  I carefully removed the bag, like my life depended on it, moved it aside and tied a big honkin knot in it.  Remember the no pooping policy?  Yeah, well someone didn't get the memo.  So thankfully once again, I had gloves on.  So I pull the hose over and firmly attach it to the correct stinky pipe.  Then I pull the black water lever again.  Now remember who is lying on the other side of the trailer, laying down holding the pipe in place?  Another visual with audio for you.  Poor beautiful Jessica, holding the pipe and gagging and heaving all the while.  I tried not to breathe while I was under there too, but the sight and sound of Jessica and of Pete laughing hysterically brought me to shrieks of laughter too.

So then I pulled the grey water lever and all of my dish water flushed things through.  It was at about this time that Pete yells over to Jessica. "Hey Jess, I don't think you need to hold that pipe, it goes down about 2 feet into the ground!"  You want to see a 16 year old girl mad, make her hold a sewage pipe just for fun.

The entire camping experience has been wonderful despite these issues.  The weather is beautiful, I read 8 books my first week (and yes I started out with the Shades of Grey trilogy), I have a bit of a tan and have relaxed completely.  We have wonderful company.  Only one other problem.  My dear sweet husband is home working while we are here.  A couple more days and he will join us. (Oh and my air conditioner still doesn't work)