Labor Day Work Day

We had a long list of things to accomplish today. We did accomplish some of them. One of the most time and energy consuming was testing our tank levels.

We spent some more time walking around town. This morning we discovered that there is actually another business in town besides the grocery store--and it actually has a neon sign. Yup, Seibert has a liquor store. It also has the Hi Plains High School. A web search shows up lots of sports sites. The town has a large sign with panels for each sports championship the students have won. Elementary students go to the nearby town of Vona, where the Hi-Plains Elementary School is located.

 Across the plains, we see many ways of bundling hay, but not this close up. This roll is wrapped in black plastic mesh.

This area has been suffering from a drought. We had some showers last night and a few sprinkles today, but not enough to actually wet the dusty earth.

The friendly owner of Shady Grove Campground was building new picnic tables today. We chatted for a bit. We stopped in the small grocery store this morning and were pleasantly surprised to find a reasonable stock of fresh produce, including some cut watermelon that I picked up in honor of the Labor Day holiday



Tank testing:

First we dumped both black and gray tanks. Then we filled a bucket with two gallons of water at a time and poured the water into the toilet (black tank). After each bucket, we recorded the SeeLevel reading of the black tank contents. We already knew that the early readings would be inaccurate, since the tanks are not uniform in shape from top to bottom.

Then we filled our fresh water tank completely and turned off the city water and turned on the water pump. We withdrew two gallons at a time from the fresh water tank and poured them into the gray tank. We recorded the fresh water level and the gray water level after each bucket.

Unfortunately, as we suspected, the readings were highly inaccurate. The black tank, rated at 70 gallons, was reported as 50% full when 16 gallons of water had been poured in. It was reported 100% full when 48 gallons had been poured in. When 62 gallons had been poured in, the tank was actually overflowing up into the toilet.

The gray tank readings showed 50% full at 20 gallons and 100% full at 50 gallons. It was overflowing at 65 gallons. The fresh water tank, rated at 100 gallons, was empty after 86 gallons had been removed.

The bottom line is that the monitor readings are highly misleading and the tanks do not actually hold the number of gallons they are rated for. We are hoping that the monitor reading accuracy can be improved, but we are also disappointed that the tanks do not hold as much as they are rated for. Even worse, the fresh water tank always loses water when the trailer is moved, even the short distance from a potable water source to a campsite. It goes from reading 100 to reading 72, and we leave a trail of spilled water behind.

We also measured the flow rate on both city water and pump at each of our faucets. The flow rate on the pump is inadequate, especially in the kitchen sink, where it is only 0.9 gals./min. The pump is rated 3 gals./min., so there's clearly a problem.