Day 50: Dips in the Road

I want to tell you about our last couple of days. After seven days of walking in the desert, we took yesterday off and spent it in Delta, UT. We drove around the town yesterday morning just getting our bearings. We passed the library and came to a large dip in the road at an intersection. I was driving and slowly made my way into the dip and out onto the other road. The back scraped and I cringed. I stopped and looked under the rear of the RV, but everything looked okay to me. So we proceeded on. We finally got to the campground and when I started to hook up our sewer hose, l discovered the black water tank valve is what had scraped the road and was bent over all out of shape. It’s plastic verses asphalt and the asphalt won. So, there we were, a tank full of black water (commode) and no way to drain it. The gray valve (sink/shower) was okay.

We went ahead and hooked up and Valda was looking through a local paper she had picked up a restaurant. Lake Philgas had an ad in the paper and it mentioned RV service and parts. We called and the owner Matt Loo walked me through what I needed to do to get the tank drained. He said he had the replacement part and if we got the tank drained and brought the RV into his shop the next morning, he could probably fix it in about an hour. Okay.

So, with a few minutes of nasty sawing and plier twisting, I got the tank drained without much junk getting on me. You can imagine being on your back, looking up at a broken valve, pulling on that valve with a pair of pliers and hoping everything works like it’s supposed to! 💩

To make a long story short, we got to the shop this morning and Matt proceeded to get on his back and take the old broken valve out. Now, it’s one thing to be working on your own sewer and sewer junk, but to work on someone else’s takes a pretty strong character. Anyway, Matt tackled the job with a smile and within the hour he had it all back together and working. Now, this is where it got interesting. He went back into his shop and picked up the old valve and put it into a plastic bag. Out he came and said he’d take care of that and that we were good to go. Valda had the checkbook in her hand and started into the shop, but Matt told her there was no charge. No charge?! What do you mean Matt?

He wouldn’t take a penny for what he did. The part must have been twenty or thirty dollars alone, plus an hour playing around in someone else’s sewer. He said it was the least he could do considering what I was doing. It humbled me. Matt Loe, you are quite a guy. Best to you always, my friend!

Thanks to Antelope Valley RV Park in Delta for comping us a night. It is much appreciated!

Personal to Nic: Great job on hitting a home run in your first game of the season!

The rest of the day went just fine. We got back out to the starting place and got in 17 miles on a windy day. Tomorrow we go through Delta and head toward Lynndyl.