Earlier this year we had been given an invitation from Jake's cousin Cindy to come to San Francisco anytime. Well, I don't know if people are always serious when they say "yeah, you're welcome at our house all the time, anytime!" But Jake and I usually take people up on the offer. So friends of Jake and Cody: don't offer unless you're willing. So we had a lot of fun with Brent & Cindy and their 8 cats. You probably read that and said "WHAT?! Eight cats?!" But let me tell you, these were the coolest cats I've ever encountered. They were friendly and well behaved and pretty much just like a bunch of little people. It was nice to have a little furry thing curl up to you whenever you wanted.
We were also able to visit some old friends from Hawaii, Mike & Bille. They live in downtown SF right in the middle of all the madness and that was a lot of fun! They were our tour guides and took us to see all of the most important sites....
Whatever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, or evening TV? Yes, these are the famous Painted Ladies shown at the beginning of the still airing and always on some high numbered channel Full House.Half way through Nevada the car started acting funny. JUST what we look forward to on long car trips. Jake has already fixed multiple things on our car-- he's become somewhat of a mechanic that way. AND big stuff too. New brakes twice, a new starter twice, an AC compressor, a fuel filter, spark plugs, and the list goes on.
When the first signs of trouble began on our trip, we blamed it on a tank of bad gas. We had just stopped in a rinky dink town and filled up at a station called Ron's Gas-- or something like that. Every time we stopped Jake would look under the hood, hoping that the problem would manifest itself plainly. It didn't, and we ended up stopping at 3 different Kragen Auto parts stores during our trip.
Replacing one gadget after another, Jake was slowly rebuilding a beautiful new engine but our car problems persisted. This was beyond us. We had enjoyed our time in San Fran but the car problem had kept this heavy feeling hanging over us the entire time. The car would get up to about 50 mph and then the power from the gas pedal to the car would cut out. The car wouldn't turn off but we'd slow down to 35-40 mph and then the power would kick back in and the car would backfire. LOUDLY. It seriously sounded like a gun shot and it would happen every 5 minutes or so. But it was HILARIOUS because our car would lose power while driving in a 65 mph zone, forcing us to slow down to 40 mph and then an angry California driver would ride up right on our bumper. Then our car would backfire SO LOUD! I've never heard a car backfire this strongly before. I'd watch in the rear view mirror as the car behind us quickly backed off from our bumper. It made for a lot of good laughs amongst the frustration.
Jake called our mechanic in Utah and asked what he thought. It sounded like we might be able to drive all the way back to Utah if we kept our speed under 50 mph. Great. That makes for a 18 hour drive. BUT, then at least we'd be able to take it to our trusty hometown mechanic.
Well, we made it as far as Lake Tahoe and the car stopped. Something big needed to be fixed, now including the muffler. The power of the backfires were so great that it eventually blew the side of our muffler wide open! So a mile and a half away from Tahoe we called for a tow truck. He took us to a place where a guy with red curly hair named Tony was hopefully going to find and fix the problem. Jake started explaining what symptoms the car had been having and what he had already fixed on the car and Tony replied with, "It works better if I let the car talk to me." Right away I was bothered but what could we do? We were the out of towners in this situation. Ugh.
One tow truck, one crankshaft sensor, one cam sensor, one O2 Sensor, one Motel 6, and two paychecks later and we were back on the road! A very loud road, because we waited to have the muffler fixed in Utah.
But we made it home safely! And we already miss the cool, salty breezes and our California friends!
Oh ya, and on the way back we decided to take Highway 50 instead of Interstate 80 because, well, we had never taken it before and wanted to see what it was like. It was really nice and I would recommend that drive to anyone that has to go across the forsaken state of northern Nevada. We probably passed 7 or 8 semi trucks along the entire drive. But the coolest part was this tree that we saw on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. There were thousands of pairs of all shapes and sizes of shoes hanging from this tree! Someone had scratched into the ravine behind the tree the words "The Shoe Tree." It was awesome to see! I've never seen that many shoes at one time, and hanging by a tree for that matter! Taking Hwy 50 was worth it just for this!
