November 18, 2012

Oasis Palms RV Park

Thermal, CA

 

We woke up to an unpleasant surprise this morning.  The first clue that there was a problem was when I got out of bed and my feet hit the wet carpet.  My suspicion about the source of the water was proved when I opened the bathroom door and saw the toilet bowl full of water.

 I spent a couple of hours trying to dry out the carpet in the bedroom while Monte spent the entire day working in the basement.  There is a trapdoor leading to the basement just outside of the bathroom door that allowed the water to drip down to the basement.  Monte had to totally empty the basement and wipe everything down.  The weather was in our favor because it was very sunny and the things left out dried quickly. 

The camp has been having issues with power brown-outs and broken pipes.  We are not positive but what we think happened was that the power went out through the night and when it came back on the water surged.  The (clean) water overflowed from the bowl.   Unlike a house toilet bowl there is no overflow hole in an RV.  Monte did some research on-line and found out this is not an uncommon problem.  Until we figure out a better way of dealing with the issue we are going to shut off the water before going to bed and when we are going to be away from the rig for the day. 

In the afternoon I took our sheets up to the laundry, located near the pool, and sat outside in the sun reading while they were in the dryer.  When it got too hot I went into the water to cool off and struck up a conversation with a woman originally from Minnesota.  Her and her husband are semi-full timers spending the summer at their lake house in Michigan and the other three seasons traveling in their coach towing a jeep.  When we discussed RV park rates I was surprised when she said she thought $30-40 per night was reasonable.  Spending $30 a night is not in our budget.  That just goes to show that there are people from diverse social and economic backgrounds living the full-time RV lifestyle.