Fort Bragg with a slight leak

Made it to Fort Bragg around 3:30.  We are staying at the Woodside RV Park & Campground right on Highway 1 just south of the city.  This is the sister campground to the Wildwood Campground on Highway 20 just before we got into Fort Bragg, but they did not have any spots which seemed to fit us.  The owner was there, and told me to head on down to this park where they have a few pull-throughs.  Well, they do, but we still had to unhook the HHR, but there is space to maneuver, and if you come in the southern entrance it is real easy.

As I was leaving Wildwood, I did back-up into a wooden pole used in the garden display.  Actually I backed-up just fine….but when I went forward turning, that is when I hit it….still not use to these rear-ends that swing out so far.  Well, it was bound to happen one of these times….ironic that it happens at a park which I choose not to enter because it is too tight in there to maneuver.

    

This park has a bunch of lifers in it….people who look like they will live here for the rest of their lives.  But in this area there is a lot of room since the sites are empty at least two sites on each side of us.  It will do for a one night stay.  What I don’t understand is how many of the parks in this area actually charge for one to have a dog in the park.  This one is $1 per dog.  I asked how much it would be for one large dog, and he says, $1.  There are many dogs which have a combined weight larger than both of our dogs combined…just does not seem fair to charge for dogs, let alone the same amount for small dogs and big dogs.

Now for the leaking problem.  Just as we were leaving my sister’s house, Arny asks what is leaking from under the slide.  I had just put the slide in, and all I could figure was that it was condensation and/or water from the air conditioner since there is no water that goes through or into the slides.  Above you can see two access panels and two water intakes.  The intake to the right is for washing out the black tank, the one of the left is for the fresh water supply.  The bottom access panel is an outside shower, the upper one is the controls for the intake water.

When hooked up to a fresh water supply, you set it to 2 & 6.  If you want to fill the tank, then it is 1 & 6.  If you don’t have a pressured water spout to fill it from, but you have a large water barrel to siphon it from, then you set it to 1 & 4 – and then turn on the pump which will pull the water into the fresh water tank.  Setting it to 3 & 5 will allow you to turn the pump on and use the water in the fresh water tank.  The other two setting are for sanitize and winterizing.

So we get up at the casino RV park, and I hear Marcia say, “what is this water on the floor?  I had shoes on, did not turn on the lights before taking the dogs out, and did not see or feel any water.  But right there on the floor between the fridge and the dining table (table is on the slide) was one of my wet foot prints on the linoleum.  On the carpet next to the slide out was damp areas…damp enough that if you step on it, you can see water just barely ripple out from under your foot.  The slide itself is dry.  I go outside and yes, there is the same drips which we saw at my sister’s house.  My theory is that when I shut the slide before we left, and about 10 minutes later turned off the water, that the movement of the slide must have started a pinhole type of leak in the water line.  This leak must have water shooting up and hitting what little carpet from under the slide is near this leaking line....and the water just seeps up the carpet into the inside of the motorhome.  From my experimentation, the leak does not show when the valves are set at 1 & 6 or 3 & 5…. only when set to 2 & 6.  So the leak has to be in that portion of the line which runs from the intake valve to the rest of the motorhome plumbing when one hooks up to a water fixture.  And yes, I do have a water regulator which does not allow for more than 40 pounds pressure into the lines.   So for the rest of this trip, and until it is fixed, we will be running off of our fresh water tank with the pump on (setting 3 & 5) with occasional fills of the fresh water tank (setting 1 & 6).  Hopefully we can find the leak once we get back to Citrus Heights, and since we have a contract, it won’t cost us more than $100…. but we hope it is something easy that can we can fix without taking to a shop. 

It took us a number of hours to dry up the floor, and I ran to the Laundromat twice, once to dry towels and another time to clean and dry the same towels after a second use.  The carpet was still damp, and in a few areas under the slide out it surely is more than damp.  But it was the best we could get it for now.  So we get away from Clear Lake around 1 pm.  The road was a nice easy drive until we reached highway 20 on the west side of highway 101, and then it was very curvy, narrow road for most of the way to highway 1.  Once in Fort Bragg we gave the carpet another rubdown with one towel, and we have our fan and heater on….I think it will be fairly dry by morning.  Tomorrow we move down to Manchester KOA where we will be for 3 or 4 nights.  But we will be back to Fort Bragg on Sunday, because we found our church here….located in a converted old bowling alley.  It will take an hour to get here, but we have done that before and to us, it is well worth it.  And perhaps after church we can take our time and look over the area more…because today we just had other things to do, unfortunately.