Where Was I, and How the Hell Did I Get There?

Am I a dummy? Or is idiot perhaps a better word? I mean, at the end of the day the simplest answer is that sometimes I just have no idea—or only a modicum of an idea—of what I am doing. Whether or not that makes me dumb I guess you could say is up for debate.

I will let you be the judge of that.

I had to get my camper de-winterized finally for a trip I will take for the first camp of the season at the end of the week and into the weekend. I have never done this before, mind you. After all, I just bought the camper last year around October or November. I forget exactly when, but it was definitely before Thanksgiving, let's put it that way.

In case you were wondering, I bought a 2019 39' Keystone Passport Elite MB34. It's actually a very nice camper and I have no complaints so far.

I could have taken it back to Camping World where I bought it and had them winterize it. But my entire experience with Camping World has been interesting enough to say, at least, for the time being I am not all that impressed with their service AT ALL.

But I am also cheap. Okay, frugal. Isn't that a much nicer word. Sort of like how I twisted up the word dummy or idiot at the beginning of this worthless post. So, I decided to take on the task myself. After all, YouTube has turned more than one dummy into a virtual expert and of course there are plenty of dewinterizing videos to get me on my way—and if I screwed it up, oh well. It would just make for a more interesting story-filled camp until I could get the job done properly.

I got the information I mostly needed. The most important of which was to open the panel to the water heater and make sure the valve was turned the right way to let water into the heater. Seemed easy enough, and in fact the whole process didn't seem to be all that complicated.

And really it wasn't.

I set out to remove the panel and took a quick peek at how to tackle it. Four Phillips head screws, two on each side. I got out my screwdriver and manuevered myself into position to remove the screws and was immediately dumfounded.

Holy crap! Why are they so tight? It's like they'd never come out before? But surely the damn camper has been winterized many times before I had it done. I struggled through the first screw and with some effort it did come out. On to the next one. It was at an awkward angle and just wasn't wanting to budge. It came out part way, but I was making no real progress and now the screw was beginning to strip out.

Perfect. Just my sort of luck and completely expected.

I was already forming an idea in my head, once I'd get that panel off, to concoct a new way of holding it in place that would be much easier to gain access to it the next time.

I went back and got a longer screwdriver and tried that. Nope. Wasn't helping. And that angle. It was ridiculous and very quickly I was spouting off words that would have horrified most people. 

Then suddenly something dawned on me. "Where am I?" 

For orientation purposes I was at the back end of the camper on the left side if you were looking at my behind. Well, the camper's behind. But if I am outside monkeying with the outside access to the water heater, I'd be on the right.

I'd be on the right side of the camper. Or the left side from the inside!

I looked over and sure enough there was a lighter panel on that side with two short screws and I was able to get that off in no time flat. And sure enough, inside was exactly what I was looking for. The hot water heater and the lever I needed to turn.

Call me what you want, but if nothing else matters, a complete idiot would never have had the brain cells fire at all to make the revelation I was able to make.

Just one more camping experience story to add to the annals of history. For whatever that's worth.

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