Things went according to plan last Thursday – except for one thing. We noticed our fresh water pump would run for a few seconds with an interval of a few minutes before it ran again. I checked for drips and didn’t find anything. Before we left, I saw a drop of water fall next to the left rear wheels. This would only come from a leak up high – I was guessing the bathroom sink area. We’d left the pump turned off all night. I couldn’t deal with it where we dry camped, so we hit the road.

We drove north through the Petrified Forest National Park, then hit I-40 eastbound. After about 20 miles, we exited on US191 north through Navajo Nation land. It was an uneventful drive until we were north of Chinle, then we hit a series of construction areas where work was being done on bridges, leaving only one lane available. These stoppages added several minutes to our drive.

The road surface also deteriorated north of Chinle as we hit unexpected dips and heaves in the roadway. We turned northeast at US160 and that road had a number of bad areas that rocked us. This route took us to the northwest corner of New Mexico – about a minute later we left New Mexico and crossed the Colorado border. The Four Corners monument where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet is less than half a mile off US160.

We entered Mountain time and lost an hour when we left Arizona. We made it to La Mesa RV Park in Cortez around 3pm local time. The camp host, Jim, said we had our pick of three sites – 7, 11 or 13. He said satellite reception should be good at any of the three. I took 13 to get us as far from the street and car wash as possible. This turned out to be a bad choice.

We set up without any issues. Donna heard a drip behind the back of the kitchen counter. She pulled out the bottom drawer and we found the leak. It’s coming from the water supply line to the shower. The problem is, it’s up high between a wall and the shower stall with no access point. Until I can figure out a way to get to it, we aren’t using the city water supply. Instead, we only run the fresh water pump with a faucet open to prevent pressurizing the shower supply line. This is a real pain.

At that point, I tried to tune in the Dish satellite TV. No good. The tree at the back of the site has grown and was leafing out enough to block reception. I talked to Jim and told him I didn’t want to go without satellite TV for a month. We decided to move to site 11 in the morning. I wish I had checked the satellite reception before we set up. Tearing it down and securing everything to move 50 feet is just as much work as securing everything to move 100 miles.

Friday night Donna manned the grill and made barbeque chicken thighs. She made barbeque sauce from scratch with a base of tomato paste, maple syrup and sriracha along with a few other ingredients. It was excellent. She served it with garlic mashed cauliflower with chives.

Later, while she was washing dishes, the water pressure from the fresh water pump dropped and only a weak stream of water came out of the kitchen faucet. When I checked it out, I found the sprayer head on the faucet we clogged. We chalked it up to eight months of storage. I took the sprayer head off and soaked it in vinegar. After soaking overnight I could blow through it – it wasn’t clogged anymore, so I put it back together.

The water volume didn’t improve and now we aren’t getting hot water – only lukewarm on the hottest setting. We had this issue seven years ago – I wrote about it in this post. I think the check valve is bad again. I ordered one from Amazon and should have it tomorrow, but I might have another problem. I only packed a few tools that I thought might come in handy. I didn’t include a 1-1/8″ socket, which is what I usually use to take out the hot water heater anode to drain it. I’ll see what I can figure out when the parts come. Meanwhile we are roughing it with low water flow and no hot water.

Saturday morning we went to the pickleball courts at Centennial Park. The Cortez pickleball club had a social event with round-robin style play. We had a good time. I felt I played really well. Donna said she was a litlle bit rusty, but she had fun.

Saturday night we went to the Loungin’ Lizard downtown for drinks and dinner. Our friend Rocco Gerardi raved about this place when we met up for a cold one at Wild Edge Brewery here a couple of years ago. He was right – the beer was cold and the food excellent!

The weather is agreeable – it was cool when we arrived on Thursday – in the mid 60s. Daily highs have varied from mid 70s to mid 80s since then with overnight lows in the mid 30s to low 40s. It’s very dry – humidity is only 10-15%. But we’re used to that as it’s dry in Mesa, Arizona too.