We need to fill up the propane tank today.
Living in an RV, even when hooked up, puts you in much greater touch with your resource use than living in an ordinary house. I think most people, by virtue of the growth culture they have been living in and still live in (hey, everybody still believes the market will go up “in the long term”) believe that natural resources are boundless. This is an article of faith on par with believing that if you put a rock in your hand, it exists.
In our RV, which is hooked up to shore power (110V) and city water, I have to keep a close eye on our resource use. This is done by looking at the readings on a monitor panel that connects to various detectors in the tanks and banks. I can for instance see how full our waste water tanks are (both above 2/3s now). I can see how fully charged our battery banks are (currently full), and I can see how much propane we got left.
Since our humongous tank is built in, we have to drive to the nearest gas station that has one of those semi-ubiquitous white tanks in the rear and have our tank refilled. This of course means that we have to get it ready to roll. DW and I have different opinions of what state to keep the RV in. Ideally I would have it ready to roll at all times. DW prefers to keep it more homely with things lying all over the place 😛 Of course these preferences are not mutually exclusive. It’s just that I haven’t gotten around to implementing a solution yet; I’m thinking velcro tape 😉
Yeah, I’d put some velcro on the puppy’s butt and fix him to the chair to keep him from scooting around while we’re driving 😀 DW will probably veto it like she vetoes all of my most brilliant ideas.
So getting ready to drive currently takes about 45 minutes. It’s been about six weeks since we last (first) refilled. That cost us $58. I imagine it will be cheaper this time.
Later comments: It cost $75 to refill the tank (17.8 gallons). We managed to back in once again without calling our respective lawyers to sort out the ensuing arguments. Hint: To back in, don’t have the outside person walking around using hand signals to direct like it was some kind of aircraft carrier. There is no need to purchase two way radios either. Instead the outside person walks next to the driver’s window and gives instructions like “Turn the wheels left … a little more … now go backwards about two feet. Stop. Make the wheels straight … a little bit more straight than that. Go back one foot … now there’s a hump. Push the pedal and when you’re over it: Stop.”. It works very well and afterwards you can both congratulate yourselves on not ripping each others heads off 😀
