Hey everybody, thanks for the replies. I appreciate it!
I've tried turning off the tank and opening very slowly and that may have helped some but still a lot of orange.
I'll try replacing the pigtail but I'll wait until we're home with access to all my tools.
We can still make coffee so we're OK. We can live without hot water and it's been so hot here (I wonder of the air temp had anything to do with this?) that we don't need the furnace.
The weather here in So. Cal. has been very hot. It's Santa Ana conditions (windy, hot, dry) so humidity has been very low. Record heat for us, even on the coast. We're camping next to the ocean and temps were in the 90s even there. Should be cooling down starting today.