Mzungu Mayhem

by Marcia Neundorfer

Temperatures were hovering at about 12 degrees F and the wind was blowing hard on a January morning in Cleveland, when Mike and I set out for Florida in Mzungu, a new motorhome built by Advanced RV. Mike said that as soon as we got a bit south, the temperatures would rise, and we wouldn’t have to worry about our full tanks freezing. When we neared Columbus, the temperature was still in the low teens, with strong winds. Mike asked me to check the faucets.

I turned on the faucet in the bathroom. Nothing came out. The water line had frozen. About an hour later, with the sun out and the temperature finally rising, he asked me to check again. I stepped off the raised cab platform, and splash! The floor of the cabin was covered in about an inch of water. In the bathroom, I found the faucet wide open, with no water coming out. I’d forgotten to turn it off. The 40 gallon, fresh tank had completely emptied, overflowed the gray tank, sink and shower pan, and flooded the cabin floor.

Mike exited the highway and pulled over onto a side road. I grabbed a juice pitcher and started scooping up the water. I passed the pitcher to Mike, he dumped it outside and then passed it back. At first, we were both dead silent, grimly scooping and dumping. I felt embarrassed and stupid and Mike was annoyed. At some point, we started laughing. We are not boat people, but here we were bailing out our new RV!

We mopped up the floor with the few towels we had on board and turned the thermostat up. Things quickly dried out and we determined that no harm was done to the floor, the pipes or tanks. The plumbing in the chassis was simply frozen for a short time. The problem was that we had the heat on in the cab, so we were warm up front, but back in the chassis, the thermostat was set too low, so the chassis heat didn’t come on. One lesson learned. Another: always close the faucets and maybe turn the water pump off. At the next truck stop, we refilled the fresh water tank and traveled on, still together, with a new story of RV mishap and recovery.