A guy posted a question yesterday on one of the RV forums I visit. He said his coach was in storage for five months. When he took it out of storage and hooked up at an RV park, he dumped his gray water holding tank. He said the discharge was dark, more like black water and had black flakes of solid material. He suspected black water sewage had somehow infiltrated his gray water tank.

There were several responses to his post with lots of theories on how black water could have ended up in the gray water holding tank. My take on the situation is this – he doesn’t have black water in his gray water tank. His gray water turned dark because he left untreated gray water in the tank with organic matter in it for five months.

The gray tank holds the water coming down the drains of the kitchen sink and shower. If you cook and wash dishes in the sink, a certain amount of organic matter (bits of food) will drain into the tank. Some soaps contain fats and oils which are also organic. Leave this stuff in a tank of water for an extended period of time and it will become a science project gone wild. Bacteria and molds will thrive.

Some people think the gray water tank is benign and doesn’t create a sanitation challenge. I disagree. The gray water tank needs attention, just like the black water tank. Gray water tanks can create foul odors if left untreated. That’s why I use TankTechs RX in my gray tank. I wrote about it in this post. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

The run of nicer weather continued yesterday. We had a high temperature of 86 degrees with partly cloudy skies. It wasn’t as windy as it’s been. Most of the time we’ve been here, we’ve had steady winds of 15 -20 mph. Yesterday it calmed down to about 10 mph.

I ran a couple of errands on the scooter and while I was out I explored Key Allegro Island. Key Allegro is a small island community in Rockport. Riding north on Broadway, I could see the island looking east across Little Bay. I made a right and crossed the bridge to the island where Broadway becomes Fulton Beach Road.

View of Key Allegro across Little Bay

The entire island is developed with very few unoccupied lots. The beach areas are private. Most of the properties back up to canals that criss-cross the island. It’s a boater’s paradise.

View from one of the few undeveloped lots

One of the Key Allegro canals

When I returned, I told Donna about Key Allegro. She was going out on a grocery shopping run on the scooter. I suggested heading out to the Grog Bar and Grill on Key Allegro for happy hour when she returned from shopping.

The Grog Bar and Grill is located at the Key Allegro Marina. We took a look around the marina – it was filled with sportfishing boats and luxury yachts. We found a table at the back of this large, beautiful bar overlooking the marina. We were the only people there!

View from the Grog Bar and Grill

We sipped a couple of beers and watched the antics of sea birds in the bay. I had an IPA brewed in Houston by Saint Arnold Brewery. It wasn’t anything special – it can’t compete with San Diego’s IPAs. We were there for close to an hour and no other patrons showed up. I took Donna for a scooter tour of Key Allegro before we headed back home.

After we returned home, I grilled herbed chicken thighs. Donna served it with sauteed haricots verts (French green beans) with cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives. Donna duped me into trying anchovy vinaigrette dressing by not telling that what was on the green beans. I’m not a fan of anchovies. The vinaigrette was a little salty for my taste but the flavor was good.

Grilled boneless chicken thighs with sauteed green beans, tomatoes and kalamata olives

We finished the evening with two episodes of Homeland from season two.

Our run of nice weather ended abruptly at 5am this morning. Donna and I were both jolted awake when a bolt of lightning struck nearby followed by a loud crack of thunder. Wind was rocking the coach as torrential rain fell. I got up and closed the living room slide as a precaution against wind or water damage. I looked at my weather radar app and once again we were in the thick of it.

We are the blue spot in the center of the storm cell

I went back to bed and listened to the thunder and rain and drifted off to sleep again. When I woke up at 8am, it was still raining but not as hard. The wind had died down. By 9:15am, the rain showers quit and sun came out. The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies with no rain until early Sunday.

I think I’ll remove the tire covers and windshield covers once they dry out. We’ll pull out of here Monday morning and I don’t want to pack wet tire and window covers.