Dumping Our Honey Wagon

When we travel in our travel trailer, we like the full hook ups.   This is what we search for in  campgrounds, and this is what we choose, even though it costs a little more.  We have made a few exceptions to our full hook up policy - for example:  when we boon docked for a night or when we stayed in a  beautiful Corps of Engineer campground with only water and electric.  We managed, but these were short stays.  Also, we do camp with a self-imposed restriction of no solids in our black tank which prevents many potential and yucky problems.  So, far all has worked out.

However, when we make our annual pilgrimage to Michigan to meet up with family and friends, there are no RV full hook up camp sites available near the town we visit.  We could stay in a full hook up campground - 2 miles away, but then we wouldn't be able to walk or ride our bikes everywhere, and most importantly, we wouldn't be near those we came to be with.

With this being our first year going to Michigan in our new travel trailer, we decided to purchase a honey pot, so we could stay at the state park for 10 days without having to hitch up, drive over to the dump station and empty the tanks.  If you've seen the sites at Charles Mears State Park in Michigan, you know what it takes to back in, and you know, you only want to do it once.  We did our research, searched Amazon for "RV Honey pot" and decided on the 21 gallon Rhino Tote Tank - the complete portable RV waste tank kit.  This honey pot wasn't the typical bright blue; it was grey.  We decided to purchase this brand as Rhino spells quality to us, and  we chose the middle sized tank.  The website said the tank could be transported during travel by attaching it to the RV back ladder.  Since our RV back ladder was already taken up by Danny's bike for our Michigan trip, and we were only going to use it when we went to Michigan, we decided we would just put the tank in our travel trailer.  As a side note, I just don't like the idea of traveling down the highway with a large, grey, portable waste tank hanging off of our RV ladder.  An RV going down the road spells FUN to me, but a blaring RV waste tank detracts with a crappy, reality check.

However, we didn't realize how big this thing would actually be.  Even though we ordered the medium, it was huge!  We also didn't know we couldn't just wheel it over to the dump station.  We should have known or at least figured it out.  A gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds, so a 21 gallon tote would weigh 174.3 pounds.  It has to be hooked up to the hitch on your vehicle and slowly, slowly driven over to the RV dump station, kind of like a funeral for your waste.  That's not that bad I guess, but we were told it may be difficult to move it even just from the side of the travel trailer over to the car hitch.  Our Rhino wasn't some medium sized wagon we could wheel around as a convenient way to empty our RV tanks.  It was a full grown elephant - that we had to store, transport, move, empty and most importantly, keep clean.

Once at our Michigan state park, though, we learned there is a pump out service which comes from Ludington twice a week.  For $25 cash, they will pump out  your tanks.  Hallelujah!!  We're happy to pay this to avoid all that other, and with only being the two of us, we figure a one time, mid-week service will take care of things.

We're were so happy, we decided to sell the RV honey pot right then and there.  And by there, I mean right there, in Michigan, in Pentwater, at Charles Mears State Park.  I put an ad on Facebook Marketplace and switched our location to Pentwater, Michigan.  We didn't even want to give this puppy a ride home.  We listed as never having been used - which was easily verifiable, and we priced it at $100.  Our original cost was $148.

Now, with God and Google as my witness, I thought everyone knew what an RV honey pot was, and I thought that was the term everyone used when looking for and/or discussing a portable RV waste tank.  It turns out though, many people have some other idea of what honey pot is.  My ad received more than 1500 views in a very, very short time - with not one person asking if the item was still available.   I don't think these people were looking for a deal on a nice, new, never been used, portable RV waste tank, do you?

Thus, I deleted the ad and posted it again once back home in St. Charles.  However, my post was flagged by Facebook and was put under review.  Yikes!!  I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was, so I thought about how I could reword the post.  I did remember that this product is sometimes called an RV honey wagon.  But I took the safe route and posted it with the words right off the box - a portable RV waste tank, the complete kit.

In no time at all, we sold "ole gray" for $90, taking a $58 dollar loss.  However, we could not have been happier to get this elephant out of our garage and out of our lives.  I do sincerely hope the new owner is happy with the purchase.  We, on the other hand, are quite happy now that going down the road, the back of our travel trailer spells out only FUN and, of course, this blog.