JUMP OR SWIM

There is a fine art to RV septic dumping. Gaila is an expert after dumping for five months when I hiked the Continental Divide. Now and then she will let me take a turn at the dump station. That was the case recently in Cody, Wyoming. We found a city RV dump station by going on the internet. Yes, the internet can even tell you where to take a dump. I did everything by the book as Gaila stood by to grade my performance. My plan was to fill up nearby with fresh water after dumping, but before I could do that a large tour bus pulled up. There was a big sign that stated, “No Commercial Dumping” but these two Canadians must not have understood English. I could see them considering their options. One was obviously the driver and the other was a slick looking tour chaperone who seemed most talented at smoking his cigarette and suggesting how the driver should go about dumping his bus full of ballast. I heard Slick say to the driver, “We can just back it up close to the hole and let ‘er go, eh?” When they started backing up next to us I told Gaila to run for her life. We jumped in the motorhome and we made a quick retreat. These turkeys didn’t even have a sewer hose. They just backed over the dump station and let’er fly, splashing everywhere. The driver was doing all the dirty work, and Slick Willy was running in the opposite direction holding his nose, puffing on his weed and yelling, “Oh, my God that stinks, eh?” 

The septic outlet on an RV is on the driver’s side of the vehicle so that irresponsible people cannot dump on the side of the road. It is obvious that this isn’t true with tour buses. I am not sure when the RV industry implemented the new location for black and gray water outlets. Trailers in the 50’s and 60’s had the dump outlet on the road side of the vehicle so that trailer owners could dump on the shoulder. I can see how that would have fallen out of favor as millions of Americans took to the road in recreational vehicles. Anyway, our new method of dumping the motorhome septic is to first check for Canadian Tour Bus operators, then get in and out fast. --Keep Smilin’