Being Campground Hosts

For the past couple weeks we've been the campground hosts here. The owners wanted to visit their daughter who is serving in the US Air Force in Japan so we happily agreed to watch over the dogs, their elderly mother who lives on site, and the campground for 3+ weeks. We figured it was end of season and the campground had not been too busy throughout the summer, so it would be fairly trouble-free.

And it has been - until today!

The weather turned a little cold today so we were not fishing. We'd been down to the "river" (what's left of it) and there were a number of people fishing, but with the promise of moisture in the air we were sticking close to the motorhome. A couple of big motorhomes had pulled in yesterday and had stayed one night. They were parked in our row, just a couple sites away from us. They had been camped at Clark Canyon reservoir, but it seemed they wanted to do laundry and have full-hookups for a night.

We were snug as bugs in our warm motorhome watching a DVD when the power went out. I had heard the neighbors in the motorhomes start up, getting ready to leave. Rick and I looked at each other and I said "Our electricity is off and I bet the neighbor took it out." I went to the rear window and could see the electric pedestal laying over and water rushing out the bent faucet.

As they were driving off, one of the motorhomes, a large Country Coach, ran over the entire connection. I thought maybe he hadn't disconnected and drove off with it still plugged in! He apologized a couple times and said he didn't realize he was running over everything. I looked at his motorhome and there were scratches running along the storage bay compartments between the front and rear wheels. He had gotten too close, rubbed against the water and electric and then ran directly over the whole thing with the rear tires. I wanted to ask how it could happen when there were 2 other adult people with him who could have, should have, been helping to spot him driving away. He just cut the corner to tight, or rather, didn't pull forward enough to miss it. I didn't ask, but wanted to.

Anyway, Rick knew where the main water shut-off was for our row and turned the water off within a few minutes. (About this time the neighbors had apologized a few more times and they left.) Rick and I checked the main electrical breaker box for the campground and houses and all was well after resetting the breakers. We tested the electrical on the surrounding rows and it was on. Rick carefully pulled the electrical box upright and I taped a large plastic bag over it. We had electricity once again in our motorhome. I went to the pump house by the river to look for pipe wrenches and any faucet parts I could find. Rick was able to find all the plumbing replacement parts we needed and soon we were able to replace the faucet and the broken water pipes. Rick turned the main water back on and all was well once again and we put away the tools. Within about an hour we were back in our motorhome, finishing the DVD.

We have another 8 days of being campground hosts. This was probably the one problem, the biggest problem, that we could imagine happening and we were able to handle it just fine. It was just electrical and plumbing; nothing we haven't done before. Just routine stuff! Simple! Piece of cake! Bring it on!