Larry pulled out yesterday for a few days to help one of the other “trailer guys” over in Willow Creek area of California who was having all kinds of equipment problems. I called Larry before turning in for the night and he was having his own problems….no headlights and no engine brake on his work truck…so he was grounded until sun up.
I get up this morning, take my walk, water the plants, spray weeds with killer, have my breakfast and then jump in the truck to run a couple of errands…..click, click, click is all I hear and the gauges are all doing funky dances….go figure, first day by myself and a broken truck.
I called my mechanic….Larry…at least he was in phone range…and he ran me through volt testing both batteries…deader than mackerels…odd, because nothing had been left on, so Larry thought maybe one of the batteries was bad or our alternator might have conked out. So he directed me to the battery charger and talked me through hooking it up and volt testing again and after about 40 minutes I was able to get the truck to start. The meter came up on the alternator, so we don’t think that was the problem.
Then it was over to Walmart for new batteries…they were backed up with people getting tires….and I didn’t want to attempt changing the batteries….too heavy and I didn’t want to squish something important…namely me. So I left them the key and walked home…I didn’t have two hours of shopping in me while waiting and it was only 82 so I figured I wouldn’t collapse of heat exhaustion in the 20 minutes or so it would take me to get home.After a couple of hours they called and I walked back to Walmart…forgot my hat, but I still made it okay…the sun is just really intense here…I walked through the air conditioned store and cooled off on my way to the automotive area, picked up the truck and toddled off on my errands.
Thrift shops are the most interesting places for finding treasures…I found nine or ten large 16X20 prints from some motel somewhere with nice frames with glass…parrots and flowers…not my décor, but I’ve been wanting to enlarge some photos from our travels and large frames are pricey….for these wide interesting molding frames….FIVE dollars each. They are white and dirty, but cleaned up and then spray painted black they will be stunning! I came home with five of them….I try not to pack rat…staying mobile minded…though I was tempted to get them all…but that is how it starts….LAUGH!
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fter I got home I turned off the truck and reached behind the seat for our shade thingy we stick in the windshield and realized that there was air blowing onto my arm from the back vents…hmmm, felt the ones in the dash…air blowing gently through them too, so now I am listening and I can hear the fan motor running, but not at full capacity….BUT any capacity with the truck turned off and the key out is a VERY BAD THING. SO now I think we know why the batteries were dead…now we just need to figure out why something is running when it shouldn’t be…computerized cars…some aspects great…others not so great. I turned the key back on and shut the air system off with its switch and when I turned the key off, no blowing air and the fan wasn’t running…BUT what else may be running that shouldn’t be? Weird.So Larry had me test the voltages a couple more times this evening…it seems like they may be down a teeny bit…normal?...I don’t know, but I’ll find out the good or bad news in the morning…need to see what happens. Larry is having conniptions because he is worried that I am stranded…not hardly…I can walk and there are neighbors I can call on in a pinch, so it’ll all wait until he gets home…which should be some time tomorrow….Lucky him. The Chevy dealer went away last fall during the first crashing of the economy so I guess it’ll be off to Reno unless we hear of a brilliant mechanic here in Fallon.
The Full Moon is apparently bringing out the epic writer in me!
Today’s pictures are of a thunder storm we encountered in the plains of Southern Oregon and then Abert Rim and Abert Lake.
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