We dewinterized Clark. Nothing broke and nobody cried.

Last night we drove Clark to Two Rivers Campground in Kentucky to flush out his systems and dewinterize him. We were nervous about this because we'd never done this before and our user's manual is not always helpful (sometimes it references other models, rendering the instructions kind of useless). We had a walk through when we purchased Clark, but the guy giving the tour explained everything really quickly; as a long-time RVer, he clearly seemed to think some of our questions were rather ignorant (I'm sure they were).

Besides, Trent and I have a long history of accidentally breaking stuff or buying things that turn out to be duds. We were concerned that this could be the moment when we realized that Clark isn't as fit as he looks. This is going to be our home and we paid a lot of money for it, so the thought of realizing we'd made a bad purchase totally freaked us out.

We chose Two Rivers because it is close and relatively inexpensive ($36 per night with a Good Sam discount), and has full hook-ups. Not knowing what to expect in terms of quality, we were pleased when we arrived at a clean, well-equipped campground with flat RV sites, picnic tables, plenty of space, and a viewing platform overlooking the river. 

After initial setup (making sure Clark was level and hooking up the electric), our first task was to find the low-point drains and close them. These drains allow water to drain out of the rig; what we wanted, however, was to fill up our freshwater tank, so the drains needed to be shut.

There are two low-point drains in our rig (don't I sound all official when I say "rig"?) One is easy to access and was already closed. The second is located underneath the bathroom sink... and to get to it, I had to stuff my arm down a tiny space behind the lowest drawer in the sink vanity. But I couldn't actually *see* the valve, so we spent a good 45 minutes or so using our phones to take pictures and orient ourselves with the setup.

See that little white rectangular thing? That's the low point drain valve.

So I stuck my arm down there and turned it, and then we turned on the water... which proceeded to cascade from the undercarriage of the vehicle to the cement pad. I stuck my hand in there again and rotated the valve, thinking that maybe I had not positioned it correctly. Still a waterfall.

At that point we decided to give it a rest and just connect our pipes to the city water so that we could flush out the antifreeze in the pipes. We were thrilled when that worked. We made a little video to document our success.

Next step: activate the hot water heater. We got it to heat up water... but the hot water wasn't flowing through the pipes. Trent spent some time interpreting the owner's manual and realized that (predictably) a valve was closed. The manual suggested that we could locate this mystery valve by opening up the grate beneath the fridge, so we did that. Once again, we couldn't actually *see* the valve until we stuck our phone in there and snapped a picture. Once again, I had to stuff my arm into this tiny space in order to access it.

No joke - here's how my arm looks today:

But it worked! We opened up the taps and voila - hot water.

The last thing we needed to figure out was how to open up the low point drain. Trent posted an SOS on our Facebook RV group asking for help, and within minutes someone responded to let us know that these valves don't work by rotation... they work by pushing them in or pulling them out. 

Duh. Why didn't we think of that?

By this point my arm was actually bruised and swollen, but we were determined to get it figured out. It was worth the effort because it totally worked! We were able to clean and fill the freshwater tank and rinse the system.

All in all, it was an extremely successful trip. It allowed us get to know Clark better, boosted our confidence in our ability to problem solve without destroying anything, and demonstrated just how helpful the RVer community can be.

Three more weeks until we're doing this full time!