Rickb RV Chronicles

OUT HERE on the LTVA, you’re essentially boondocking. Well, dry camping anyway. No hookups, but the LTVA’s do have water fill and dump station – that’s part of what the fees cover.

I can get by about a week dry camping, being careful with water usage (shower every other day, rinse all the dishes at once, recycle the pasta water as dishwater, etc., etc.) But, I don’t want to have to break down the trailer and haul it over every time I need to rewater and dump. Has to be a better way.

There are a lot of solutions about camp. The most elaborate I’ve seen is little trailers with two 55 gallon drums, replete with auxilliary pumps and macerator. In this setup, the black goes through the macerator into the waste 55 gallon drum, the gray water goes in, too. The whole assembly is towed (on a specially-made trailer) over to the dump station (after closing off and disconnecting, of course), where the waste drum is dumped. Then, the trailer is hauled over to the freshwater side and the freshwater 55 gallon drum is filled, to be returned to the campsite. Once there, the freshwater is pumped from the 55 gallon drum into the freshwater tank and, voila, good for another few days.

It looks great, but is somewhat elaborate. And I’m not sure I’d have space in the pickup or the trailer for the whole affair. I’m looking for a simpler solution.

For the first attempt, I’ve picked up a used ‘blue tote’ portable dump tank (in Quartzsite) and have ordered a pickup-rooftop bladder thing from Camping World. I’ve seen them used before in the LTVA’s. It seems like the simplest solution – throw it up on the pickup roof, fill it up and let gravity otherwise do the work.

I’ll post the results when it comes in and I’ve done a couple of dump/refill cycles.