August 18 - Day 49

I know just about everyone out there has probably tried to repair something at one time or another just to find out that the "easy" fix was about three times more difficult than you thought.
We’ll that happened to me today. The toilet in the RV lost its ability to add water two days ago. We could still add water via a milkjug and flush it, but the water valve had broken closed. The milk jug method was getting old, so I thought I’d just get a new toilet. I was fortunate that an RV dealer was 1 mile from our campsite and we arrived at the campsite one hour before they closed. "Piece of cake" the lady at the RV store told me, "two bolts and the water supply connection". After removing the old toilet I noticed the new toilet was a tad bit higher than the old, but it appeared that I had enough slack in the water supply line to handle it…..Not true. No big deal, I thought I would just put on the old toilet and use the milk jug method until I could get a short section of hose to bridge the gap. When I put back the old toilet, the valve was now stuck open so water was gushing out. This now meant that all water pressure had to be removed from the RV, a much larger problem. Again, I was fortunate that a Home Depot was still open and was very blessed that the guy in the plumbing section could rig me up a short extension (I wouldn’t have found the right section or the snap connectors on my own). However, since I didn’t have exact measurements he gave me some extra. I knew I had plenty of slack and I didn’t have a measuring device so I didn’t worry about trimming it. Well, once again, bonehead move. Now I have too much. So tomorrow after church we head back to Home Depot. All I need is the quick disconnect ring and their cutters to make a clean cut (steak knife wouldn’t work). By lunch time, we should be open for business. Next time, I’ll settle on the milk jug method and save the hassle, the flooding, the cost, the frustration, and the time. Oh, by the way, we are in Great Falls, Montana and we will be at Glacier National Park tomorrow (Sunday) and stay through Tuesday.