Mercury in retrograde?

October 23rd, 2019

Little Sadie wondering if we’re ever going to get going again… so was I. Tooling down the interstate, after an agonizing few days with car problems, much worse for Alan than for me for sure, and after fixing 5 problems that came up one at a time, and suddenly, N-O-T-H-I-N-G, just idle, no acceleration whatsoever. Well, that sure sucked, and yet the good news was that right there ahead was a rest area. Coasted right in, and the throttle sensor was acting up. Turns out that shutting the van off and starting it up cleared it, and onward… until the next time… and over the next 200+ miles, it died 6 times. Didn’t shut off on entrance ramps, exits, or in the middle of a spaghetti bowl, so life is good, just on straight stretches, get over to the right, put on 4 ways, pop it into neutral, turn it off, count to 5, fire it up, rev to let transmission find the gears, and drop it in… Suffice it to say, it was stressful. This was one time that 1 million miles in a truck paid off…

Made it, only lost two days to other electrical problems of the van and trailer. It matters because I’ve had to cancel so many trips this year, all but one (not including camp-hosting), so I’m entitled to whine!

It’s BEEEEE-UUUUU-TIFUL, chilly but OK. Doooo, dooooo, doooooo, looking out my back door!

Picked up the tail light converter at Fleet Farm on the way, but had to order the throttle sensor, it’ll be here tomorrow, so I’m hoping for another trip next year where we won’t have to deal with unending problems. Also hoping that Kias aren’t built to self-destruct at 200,000… we’ll see. It’s been perfect, and CHEAP for almost a year now, but this is getting to be a bit much.

The wind last night was unreal, and though temp in low 40s, didn’t turn on the propane, and used a tiny electric heater to take off the morning chill. I saw that Duluth had major problems with wind and waves, and the shoreline here shows the high waves, lots of stuff washed up, and the waves were a bit high but not so bad:

Off to NAPA soon! Hope that resolves these electrical things, but I swear it’s Mercury throwing the wrench in!

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