Let’s Talk About Waste 

Now let’s set those pleasant thoughts aside and talk about human waste.  When you’re driving a mini-home with a mobile outhouse there are waste water responsibilities you need to know about.  

Our RV is equipped with a clean water tank, a “gray” water tank, and a “black” water tank.  I can’t think of the latter without humming the Doobie Brothers.  For the uninitiated, the gray water receives anything going down the sinks or the shower.  The black water tank handles all solid waste and effluent from your toilet.  Both at some point require emptying.  

This is something that kept Gale awake many nights.  She researched like a freshman cramming for finals.  There were stories of hoses running amok and spraying rookie RVers with…well, you get the picture.  She’s made sure we have a brick to hold the hose down as insurance.  She also was a dear and provided me (yes, I drew the short straw) with disposable plastic gloves.  Frankly, after she shared her dumping horror stories from the internet, I thought an expression of true love would be a Hazmat suit…or at least something with a hefty face shield.   Cue up “Living on the Edge” and let’s drain those tanks.

GREAT TIP!  “Clean hands… Clean water”  

Gale found this nugget and It’s a great axiom to memorize.  While your hands (or gloves) are clean…connect your clean water.  In other words, when you arrive…connect your clean hose to the RV first.  As you’re leaving…disconnect it first.  Then go after the waste hose.  

Ours is cleverly stored away from all of our personal items…hiding like a particularly evil snake in a square metal vessel above the rear bumper.   Rubber caps hold it in place but allow it to vent and dry.    

It attaches easily, locking into place with a quarter clockwise turn.  The business end is then locked on to a similar universal male receptacle attached to the dumping tube…or if it’s just a plastic or clay crock, you thread the hose a foot in and lay your brick on top.  Some tanks empty with great force, causing the hose to pop out and gyrate like a mythical Greek Hydra…with only one head, thank God.   The brick should do the trick.   

Black then Gray, You’ll be OK

Empty the black water first.  Our valve is a simple pull mechanism.   Don’t jerk it open…gently and gradually open it to keep the Hydra from defeating the brick and rearing it’s truly foul head.   Ours emptied easily and without incident.  

There’s a reason your gray water goes last…it’s basically mildly soapy bath water and does a nice job of rinsing your hose of the ugly stuff that preceded it.  Again, no muss, no fuss.  Then after double checking both valves were closed, I replaced the hose in its bumper housing and carefully peeled off my gloves and disposed of them, before thoroughly washing my hands.   

We’ll dump again at the sleep-spot before the last leg of our trip, and can hopefully arrive in San Diego with clean tanks.  

Important Safety Tips

• The black water tank does require chemical treatment.  Some RV’s come equipped with solid cakes that slowly break down.  They brought back too many reminders of the Joe Louis Arena men’s room troughs after a stampede of beer soaked fans.  We opted for a liquid chemical bottle you break open and dump in.  Gale was warned against this biodegradable option, but we found it works really well.  It breaks down the waste and you have a nicer looking, and smelling, privy.   You can find them at Wal-Mart or order them on-line before your trip.  
• Make sure you only use single-ply RV or Marine grade toilet tissue.  You want it to break down in the tank and not clog your plumbing when dumping. 

Back to the Voyage

Heading through eastern Colorado the fields began rolling.  Farmers were using tiers in their fields to defeat erosion.  Crops turned to grasslands with herds of socially distanced cattle grazing across the plain.   Now and again, you’d see a lonely bull commanding his field.  We were moving at a nice clip on a beautiful piece of I-80, my side visor down to protect me from the sunshine that eluded us the day before. 

After much poking about I found the Detroit Lions game on my XM Sirius app and was pleasantly surprised to find them with a slight lead over the Bears.  But as any Lions fan knows… trouble and odd luck are always lurking.  

We were making great time when a foul stench hit my nose and it was unmistakable—-the smell of fetid waste.  “Jesus Gale!,” I said, screwing up my face in disgust. “Do you smell that?  Did our black tank rupture?”  We had hit some massive potholes before getting to the Colorado line and I thought maybe one of them had caused disaster.  My mind’s eye was picturing a river of yuck leaking into our beautiful home on wheels.  She burst out in highly inappropriate laughter for the situation we were in and pointed out the driver’s side window.  

There, a few hundred yards from the roadside was a massive stockyard with several thousand head of cattle and apparently several hundred tons of cow waste!    Okay…my olfactory identification system was working just fine.  I just misidentified the source.  Our laughter lasted for at least a township and a half.  

It does indicate, thanks to my lovely wife, I’m now as paranoid as she is about the black water we’re hauling. 

Oh yes, and in the final quarter of the game, the Lion’s defense stunk even worse than the stockyard and they dropped a game they should have won.