Date: Sunday, June 12th, 2016
Weather: Windy, cloudy and cool at 12 degrees Celsius
Mileage at Start of Day: 875 miles
Mileage at End of Day: 890 miles
Total Daily Miles: 15 miles

Today’s objective is to get the RV out of the driveway, dump our grey and black tanks and fill up our fuel tank.

Preparing the coach for departure is relatively straightforward. We have only one shore line to disconnect. With our surge protection system it is as simple as unplugging the coach from the power station. Our power reel makes it easy to stow the electrical line.

We then go through the coach to make sure that all the loose items are properly stowed and secured. We do a visual inspection outside the coach to make sure that nothing is leaking or amiss. We check the tire pressure on each wheel. We check to make sure all compartment doors are firmly closed.

Our technician told us to get the coach to ride height before bringing in the slides. This apparently is a topic for which there are many arguments pro and con. However, Newmar advised us to follow this process: when arriving to a site, slides out and then jacks out and when leaving a site, jacks in and then slides in.

It takes our coach several minutes to bring up the jacks. The engine has to be running for this part of the process. Parking brake engaged. Transmission in neutral. Engine start.

Once the jacks are up it takes a few more minutes to inflate the air bags. Visually confirm that we are at ride height and then turn the engine off. Remove the jack plates. Bring the slides in.

Start the engine and do the circle check.

Everything looks good and we are now ready to get the coach back on the road.

We have a driveway that runs about 1,000 feet through a heavily wooded forest:

When we brought the coach home, we were able to navigate the coach up the drive to our house and we wound up parking it about here:

The challenge for today: find a way to get the coach back out to the street.

Lorraine and I had spent time clearing out a section of about 25 feet or so that was almost straight back of the coach on the left side of the driveway. That should allow enough swing space to get the coach pointed in the right direction. It took a couple of attempts and finally we gained the upper hand.

We could drive the coach to the street.

Success.

The next task was to drive to the local KOA and dump our tanks. The local KOA is only a few kilometres from where we live. But this is the first campsite that we have visited with the coach and our first time dumping tanks.

The campground map:

We are new at all of this so it wasn’t really apparent where we should go. We checked in at the office, paid our dump fees and then pondered our next steps when we got back to the coach. There were two coaches already at the dump station and they were facing us so clearly we were going in the wrong direction.

Lorraine jumped out and asked one of the staff how we should approach the dump station.

“Follow Route 66 and go around.”

We drove along Route 66, Sunset Blvd and turned right on the Road to Hell before making a final turn on Goa Way.

We were next in line for the inside dumping station — this site has two dump stations — directly behind a rental RV. It was evident that although we were doing this for the first time, so were they. They handled the process with bare hands. Yuck. And they spilled material all around the dump station. Double yuck. And they did not do a great job cleaning up.

I pulled the coach in and Lorraine cued me when our wet bay was in line with the dump station.

I have to say that doing the research and going through the videos here made a huge difference. Dumping tanks is easy!

We had our disposable gloves, our clear elbow joint, a high quality sewer hose and our Lysol disinfectant.

I opened our wet bay and put on my gloves. I then removed the cover for the sewer hose. I double checked the grey and black valves to make sure that they were closed. I then removed the tank valve cover.

Over to the sewer line storage bay. I removed our sewer hose and removed the covers to both ends. I removed our clear elbow joint.

Back to the wet bay. Elbow joint attached. Sewer hose attached. Extend hose out to the dump station. Make sure everything is connected and secure.

Great. All looks good.

I partly opened the grey valve for a few moments to confirm no leaks. And there were none.

Close the grey tank valve.

Open the black tank valve. Lots of material and lots of velocity. It really did not take long to empty that tank.

Close the black tank valve.

I attached the dump water hose to the sewage rinse inlet and I introduced water into the black tank for about 3 minutes. I then closed the water and released the black tank valve again. Everything came out all clear but, just in case, I repeated the process. Again, all clear. The black tank was clean.

Once that was finished I removed the water hose for the black tank rinse and closed the black tank valve.

Then I opened the grey tank valve.

Awesome. Everything is working just as it should. The grey tank emptied out.

Close the grey tank valve.

Time to clean everything up and put everything away. We sprayed all of the connection points with Lysol and we rinsed our work area.

Very straightforward. The dumping station even provided an area to dispose of our disposable gloves.

Next and final stop was to top up our diesel tank. We made our way to our local truck stop, a bit of a longer drive, and fueled the coach much like we would fuel a car. Except for that really big bill at the end.

We made our return trip home and set up the coach

A very successful day.