Heater Trouble & a Chill in the Air: Travel Day to Bryce Canyon

We woke up to an RV that was 67 degrees Fahrenheit according to our new heater. Holding our breath, we turned on our water. Thankfully it all worked. Hooray—our pipes did not freeze! We felt quite excited that we had just survived the most extreme winter weather ever. I happily made a cup of coffee and Ron went outside to assess the snowy situation. I could hear him talking and laughing outside and before long I knew what was so funny. While we took all the precautions to make sure our water hose and our water pipes did not freeze we did not take the same care with our septic hose.  

Now Ron as a long history with our septic system and like I have said before it has become quite comical with my family.  This morning the funny comments and jokes directed at Ron about frozen “poopsicles” were hilarious. After many laughs with mom and dad, we decided to seriously tackle this problem. We ran a lot of hot water through our pipes and into our septic hose and eventually the pipe cleared. This journey is teaching us so much. With a few more nights of freezing temperatures ahead, Ron said he will now make sure to close the valve to keep gray water and black water out of the septic hose.  

Once that was fixed, we hooked up and made our way to Bryce Canyon. Driving the remote roads through Utah, the wind blew cold across the plains. We drove up some high elevation roads and through some free-range cattle land. It was fun to see cows right along the side of the road.  Our late start from Moab had us arriving at our campsite around 5:00 pm. The 5 hour drive gave Ariel and Wyatt a lot of time to finish their school work. They loved sharing with their class that we had snow the night before. Still loving our first snowfall, we listened to Christmas music all day today.  I have to say that I am getting excited to decorate the house for the holidays when we get home.  Christmas is my favourite time of year.   

The gusty plains and high elevation roads did not help our poor RV thaw out. We were a bit worried about the cold (-15 degrees Celsius) temperatures in the forecast for Bryce Canyon. After we set up camp at Ruby’s RV campground (which we highly recommend) Ron and I agreed that we needed to figure out what was wrong with our furnace. We removed the outside panel to see if the big bump we hit disturbed the wires somehow. Inside, we saw a reset button so we tried that. That helped and the furnace tried to light repeatedly. Ron played with some of the wires. Again, the furnace tried very hard to light and pump out some precious heat for us.  

The wind was blowing pretty hard at this point. We decided to put the cover back on and I would restart the furnace from inside. I turned off the furnace and then turned it back on with the thermostat. Heading back outside, I could still hear the furnace trying to light. I opened the door just in time to see the side panel shoot off of our RV like a rocket toward Ron. He ducked and we both looked at it on the ground in astonishment. Holy cow what just happened? 

Apparently, our unsuccessful attempts to light the furnace caused too much propane to build up. The pressure blew off the panel.  After our poopsicle morning, this just seemed par for the course.  We thanked Ron’s guardian angel (a very exhausted angel by now) and tried to turn on our new little heater.  This would not work either, so we were beginning to feel as though our fate was to freeze.  Our only hope was to check out Ruby’s General Store for another heater.  

This cute General Store offered all kinds of treasures and groceries and camping supplies. We rejoiced when we saw they had heaters, happily picked up two, and then went to Ruby’s Restaurant for dinner. This little area is named after Rueben Syrett (known by most folks as Ruby) who had always dreamed of having a ranch. In 1916 his dreams came true.  He and his wife loaded up their wagon with their 6 week old daughter and 8 year old son and headed to the land they bought on the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau (where we are now). 

After enjoying a home cooked themed meal and went back to camp to set up our new heaters.  The heaters could not be operated at maximum capacity because despite our 50 amp power hook up the heaters blew the breaker inside the RV. Ron rearranged the heaters with our outlets and still it would not work. During all of this we realized why our original heater would not work. The breaker on the outside electrical hook up had popped, likely from the camper before us trying to keep their RV warm. 

Now that we had our original heater working again we decided to use it tonight since we could only use one.  It produced the most heat.  Again we said a prayer and Ron closed the septic valve. We brought the pups inside and put on a Christmas movie, really hoping we wake up to water flowing through our pipes in the morning.  But with this wind that’s blowing, the cold temperatures, and the tiny heater that can’t seem to get our RV above 46 degrees Fahrenheit I’m not sure what waits for us in the morning.  

Fingers crossed and a cold goodnight from Bryce Canyon!