I am a true believer that one should take google reviews with a grain of salt.  I believe in having your own opinion, thinking for yourself and allowing your experiences to be the judge of your environment or situation, not immediately allowing the opinions of others guide you.  Your needs, wants and desires, likes and dislikes are your own and shouldn't be influenced by whether or not something, someone or someplace has 2 or 5 stars on Google Review.  We have experienced this both ways, a 2 star review turned out to be fantastic and a 5 star rating was a disaster.  However, you do run the risk of being wrong and making a poor choice and saying quietly to yourself "I should have listened to the Google Reviews".  So begins my story . . . 

In the States along many of the major routes there is a chain of service stations called "Love's Travel Stops".  Love's Travel Stops are truly amazing and have everything in one place for the traveler.  You can fuel up your vehicle, top up your propane bottles, check your tire pressures, grab a bite to eat, and . . . dump your sewage tanks on your RV.  They even have truck lanes where we can pull through and fill both of our fuel tanks in half the time it takes to fill one in the regular car lanes.  We love Love's!

We had been boondocking during our stay at the Mane Gait Equestrian Centre, which means no hookups, which means that our black and grey water tanks were getting full.  We don't like to travel far with our tanks full due to some horror stories of peoples' tanks falling right off their rigs because of the rough US highways and added weight sloshing around in the tanks.  This was one opinion that we were not prepared to challenge and experience for ourselves.  We found that there was a Love's a short way down the road in the direction that we were headed.  With a quick glance at the reviews we saw this particular dump site had 1 star and the title was "Terrible Dump Site".  It went on to say "this should be a last resort for dumping. . .  weird configuration of pipe made it a chore. The hook up is higher than usual and hard to get gravity to work in your favor. . .  I’ll avoid this if possible in the future."  Meh, one man's opinion . . . just lift your hose, don't be a whiner, I thought.  We decided that despite the review the site was easily accessible off the highway and on our route.  

What the author of the review failed to mention is that, because of the way the sani-dump is situated in the parking lot, bigger rigs, such as ours, would have to stop a fair distance from the dump site in order not to block any vehicles that were parked on either side of the dump.  I noticed right away that the review was accurate in that there was quite a jump up at the end of the line to the sewer pipe.  I was still not too concerned because I had a solid connection for that end that would slip right into the pipe.  It would mean being a little more hands on as I would have to lift the pipe and "walk" its contents down to the outlet, that's why they make gloves for this, right?  However, because of the distance to the pipe, I had to use two sewer hoses joined together.  That's why they make the sewer hoses to join together, right?

I set up the hoses and Julie went to find someone to help us with propane which, conveniently enough, was right next to the sani-dump.  I pulled the black tank valve and the contents of the tank began to flow out and into the hose.  The author of the review was correct in saying that gravity is not in your favor in this situation and the gunk made it as far as the curb and stopped, backing up inside the hose.  No big deal, I thought, time to just walk it down.  If anyone has ever tried to walk sludge down a sewer hose you will know that it is a tricky procedure.  You don't want to go too fast as it doesn't give it time to flow down and it will go backwards back into the tank and you don't want to go too slow because your hose is an accordion and will stretch longer and longer the more you hold the weight up.  There's an optimum speed to "walk sludge" depending on the amount of incline you are trying to overcome.

The first round of emptying the hose went well.  Speed was good and I was able to empty the hose without much trouble.  I laid it back down and allowed it to fill a second time.  This is when all hell broke loose and the shit show began.  What I didn't realize is that during the first "walking of the sludge" the joint between the two hoses had started to wiggle loose.  As I picked up the first hose and walked the length of it everything was good.  As the weight of the sludge hit the joint between hoses and the fact that I was now lifting one end of it, the two hoses suddenly parted ways!  What happened next was straight out of the Robin Williams movie "RV".  Stinky sewage sludge went everywhere.  Gravity was now working perfectly fine and given that the pavement was lower than the tank outlet on the RV it was flowing very well.  When the hoses came apart it created a whipping effect which sent a spattering of poop into the air which then came down and landed squarely on my left boob.  In my haste to try and catch the free end I filled my right running shoe with poopy sludge water.  Now, those who know me know that I don't do well with nasty smells or being covered in bodily fluids.  I began to gag . . . and also those who know me know that I have a weak bladder and sneezing and gagging can cause issue if I haven't been to the loo for a bit.  All of this had culminated to a drastic situation which I had little control over.  I was covered in poop, the parking lot had a good amount of gross, sludgy water oozing from under the trailer, Julie was no where to be found, and I had peed a little.  I managed to rejoin the two hoses before the tank fully voided itself and then stood there, ruminating over what had just happened and the words of the review played over and over in my mind "terrible dump site, terrible dump site".  That's when Julie came around the corner.  Probably the first thing to hit her was the smell.  Then she was met with my anger and my rant about how stupid it was to build a dump station this way and how everything was going wrong, etc.  She advised me, as she often does (and rightly so) "you need to calm down".  I looked at her and said "I can't calm down!  I'm covered in shit!!"... "Yes, you are" she quietly replied.

Muttering angrily over and over, I managed to finish draining the tank without further problems (although the damage had been done), I tried my best to wash down the pavement in the general direction of the curb (at least it served to dilute the spillage a little), I went into the trailer and cleaned up and changed my clothes and put my running shoes in a plastic bag, tightly tied and stored underneath in cargo.  I climbed back into the truck where Julie was patiently waiting with the dogs, muttered a bit more about how stupid of a set-up that was and we pulled away, leaving a reminder behind of our 1 star dump site.  When we arrived at our next stop the host came to meet us.  I realized that my choice of clothing was not the greatest (I think I had grabbed the only things accessible, which was my pajamas, which in all fairness are just a t-shirt and shorts but, regardless, not the type I would choose to wear in public).  I told him I don't usually dress like this, but its a long story . . . "

Moral of the story is that you should always ensure your joints are tight and its ok to believe the reviews if the result of not doing so could lead to a literal shit-show!