The Road to California...

It seems like we can't take a trip these days and have it be uneventful...

We left June 2nd to come out to California to spend a few weeks with Darren's family before we head out to Virginia. I was a little hesitant to take the Honda, since we had such problems with it last year on a long drive. Well, turns out I should have voiced those concerns to Darren...

We left about 8 in the morning and made great time over to Twin Falls, down to Wells and then over to Reno. I was pretty happy that everything was going well! We got up to Truckee and there were no signs of malfunction so we thought we were home free. Wrong.

We came over Donner Pass and the engine light started blinking. Darren pulled over under the overpass, opened the hood and steam came pouring out. I unfortunately turn into an emotional psycho when things like this go wrong. Darren looked around to see what was wrong and discovered that the hose from our radiator to the overflow had popped off the radiator and coolant had been sprayed onto our engine causing the steamage. (By the way, there were about 4-5 CalTrans workers about 10 feet away and they just sat and watched...not cool). He reattached the hose, let things cool down a little bit and headed back down the mountain (after may phone calls to dads...). The car was still acting a little funny (stuttering and shaking a little when going at a low speed), but we figured we'd get as far down the pass into Sacramento as we could and then stop if we needed to. Luckily we made it all the way to Salida and the car was acting fine by then! The engine light had stopped blinking and was just steady, which was also a good sign.

We took it into a mechanic the next day who didn't really know why the hose popped off. He said there must have been a build-up of pressure (but the thermostat didn't go up at all) and the stuttering was probably caused by the moisture from the coolant on the spark plugs and such. That all stopped when everything dried out. Good news.

I'm still hesitant to drive it across the country, especially after it started to over heat Tuesday night on the way back from San Francisco. Seriously...what overheats in 50 degree weather?! As much as I love this car, I think it's getting to the point that it's causing to much stress to be an asset...we shall see :)