Sunday, October 09, 2016

Serendipity


People are awesome. These camp sites are tiny but beautiful as we have tall trees and a view of a fishing pond. My neighbors didn't have room to park their car on their lot so I volunteered my spot.

I am in a long pull-thru which I am parked at one end, the end most level, but still needed 4 heavy duty boards to try to bring me level enough to run my refrigerator. So there was plenty of room to park their car in front of my rig. Then we were treated to 28 hours of nonstop rains in a full campground.

Two campers had to brave the rains to put multiple tarps over their rigs. So sad. Nothing worse than a leaky RV.

Tonight the rains stopped. My neighbors came over to offer me a huge plate of food. Harley dog escaped out the door at full speed ahead. He ran for the nearest outdoor party to insert himself in the middle. Then he ran inside their trailer to bounce off their furniture testing it for comfort. Harley would love to live with a crowd of folks so he would never be without an audience or playmate for his antics.

I was flailing around slipping on my shoes and grabbing his leash to go fetch him. As I sheepishly began looking for my errant pooch, the party next door said "Oh, he's in our trailer!" A teenage girl came out cuddling him. He was out of breath and oscillating between being super happy with his adventure and that worried look of "Ut oh, I been bad doggy!"

I brought him home. In spite of his bad behavior, scaring me with his escape, I shared some of my mammoth dinner with him. They had sent over shredded barbecue, beans, coleslaw and macaroni and cheese. This was all homemade delicious! Harley was thrilled they sent over a mountain of meat and macaroni because I shared it with him.

As a puppy, Harley was overly picky and it was initially hard to find food to get him to eat and get his malnourished bony body up to weight. Now he is the direct opposite, not picky at all. Loves his wet food, dry food, snacks and people food. Hot spicy food and cheese are clearly his favorites.

About the time we finished our lovely delivered dinner, the power went out. And stayed out. It came back on around 3am, I happened to be up then. I've injured my upper arm and I just can't get comfortable so the pain wakes me up every hour or less. I am packing serious bags under my eyes.

Matter of fact, I was able to book an additional 2 nights stay here, which I may have to extend further though I have to be out of here by Thursday as weekends are sold out.

But so far, we survived hurricane Matthew. PHEW.

This picture is my favorite piece of disaster equipment, which I use daily. It's a Berky water purifier that requires no electricity, no water pressure and no frequent filter changes. The unique but powerful ceramic filters remove a ton of unwanted toxins. They are renewable and last anywhere from 6,000 to 30,000 gallons.

Even though I bought the smallest purifier they make, I had trouble finding a home for it in my tiny motorhome. Finally I realized it serendipitously fit under the kitchen sink. After using it a few times, I decided it was much easier to deal with if I removed the cabinet door. A black bungee cord holds the purifier in place so when I am driving it doesn't come bouncing out of the cabinet sloshing water around.

I have a retractable kitchen faucet. I use it to pop the lid off the top of the Berkey, fill up the top tank then wait anywhere from 20 minutes to 20 hours, for it to purify while delivering the pure water to the bottom tank. Some camps provide such horrible water, it only purifies one drop every few minutes. Other places the water quality is much better and 20 minutes later I have a tank of awesome water.

I carefully measured from the bottom tap to the floor then bought two water carafes that fit there perfectly for draining the water into for storage. I keep these filled up so I end up with plenty of drinking and cooking water. I also make ice with this water. The taste is incredibly delicious.

The Berkey can filter tap water, river water, lake water or rain water. Anything but salt water. Fabulous for daily use and indispensable for emergency disaster use. Don't let the price shock you, it includes top of line quality stainless steel that will last a lifetime. My original filters are on their 3rd or 4th year. Every few months or after visiting a place with horrible water, I remove the filters, then scrub them clean under running water. This sort of speeds up the purifying again.

Last time I camped at Lake Hartwell, the water there was horrendous. Some days it was mud red, other days s sickening green color. My Berkey struggled at a snail's pace to turn that crap into delicious drinking water. I also use an inline pre-filter from the camp's faucet to my outside RV hookup. This helps the Berkey filters last longer and also prevents me from having bad bath water. At Hartwell I was treated to the worst case of ear infection I have ever had. I suppose it came from the shower, so after that I started using a pre-filter cartridge. It doesn't last long, maybe 4-8 weeks.

If seriously delicious pure water is important to you, get the Berkey Water System.  This is the eco green friendly way to go too. No massive pile of plastic bottles filling up the garbage and landfills and overworked recycling centers.



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