We get home from Portland on Tuesday, and on Friday take off again for Carson City. It`s Mothers day, and I need to be there.
My Mom is 89 and my Dad is 90, and sure hard to see him slowing down as he has the past year. especially since when I was there for his BD in April.
I don`t want to have my Mom doing any extra cooking, so we ate out a lot. and took them to Reno for Mothers day brunch at the Tamarack. It`s a newer Casino, and they had a great cattered Buffett.
Reno is 30 or so miles north of Carson City. sure was windy going through the Washoe Valley. wind coming down off the Sierra mountains was ppushing the car sideways with the hard gusts.
it snowed a little off and on, and on Sunday night and Monday it snowed all day. didn`t stick down on the valley floor, but in the hills it whittened them up a bit. It was exciting to see it since we don`t get it in Santa Cruz. Not exciting if you have to live in it.
We left for home on tuesday, and went back on Hwy 88. this road is closed in the winter from snow, but is open now. there is several summits at around 7K ft and one a little over 8K ft. there is a lot of snow pack in the Sierra, but is melting at a good rate and filling the streams. there is one lake, Capels a man made lake that is still froze over. the road runs across the dam.
it`s beautiful up there, still ice cicles on the rocks cliffs along the road, and water falls here and there.
The 240 had to struggle a bunch on the steeper hills, luckly not much traffic this time of year, so could enjoy the views.
Hwy 88 drops into civilation eventually, and runs through some of the Gold Rush towns of 1849. and finally into Stockton at Hwy 99 which we took and then cut over to I-5 and finally to Lathrop for fuel.
When we came back from Portland, we paid $4.35 on the 3rd. the 6th we paid $4.37. the 10th it dropped to $4.29. I heard it was coming down some. this is a temporary feel good thing, when it goes back up, it will be $4.75
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We finally got home around 11PM.
So today we get the car unpacked. wash some closes and repacked the bags for our trip to Semi Valley for my nieces graduation from college. down near los Angeles. actually not too far from Metric Motors.
so in the morning when My Bro in Law gets here (8am) we hit the road again for a 400 mile trip.
I jacked up the car today to do a little checking on things. Diff, trans fluid, oil, coolant etc... all good, but did notice the upper radiator hose leaking a little where it connects to the thermostat pipe. loose clamp.
I had been having the trans grind once in a while shifting into 2nd gear. there is a little loosness in the shifter bushing under the shifter, but the bigger problem was the lever on the trans was loose on its shaft. tightened up the 10mm bolt that clamps it. this is the old iron box trans.
Gave the old girl a good washing, and once over. a little tire dressing on the rubber parts to keep up my immage.
go to look good.
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So we should be good to go on one more trip.
Charlie