Friday, April 12, 2013

Utah/Idaho

By Hedgehog,
Our Friday started with a beautiful view of the mountains in Park City. (below)
After having some coffee and scraping off our car windows we got under way. We headed into Salt Lake City right at rush hour. The traffic was very manageable. The greater SLC metro area was much larger than I had anticipated. We saw the lake itself several times from the freeway. We waved "Hi" to ULA (makers of our backpacks) as we drove by their exit.
The sun was shining and the day quickly turned very nice.
I visited my 48th state today as we entered into Idaho (AK and HI left).  We stopped in Boise for lunch.
The temperature gauge of Booboo's car had just started rising above 3/4 when we pulled into the parking lot. We wrote it off as having been the long climb up the mountains. 
After a leisurely lunch (it was nice to be out of the cars) we prepared to head out of town.   Booboo's car quickly overheated again.   We stopped at a gas station and I went inside to see if they knew a local mechanic. They didn't, but I was able to ascertain what suburb we were actually in.
In the meantime Booboo had looked up Meineke and with the suburbs' name wss able to locate the nearest one.
The gentleman at Meridian Meineke found the problem very quickly as the radiator pressure cap was loose. We figure it had been that way since Booboo had her car serviced about a week ago. 
The thread on the radiator was slightly bent, preventing the cap from seating right. The cold temperatures had kept it from being a problem until today's mountain climbing in 60 degrees.
So after topping off the radiator, fixing the thread and seating the cap the mechanic said "No charge, have a good day". Thank you Meridian Meineke.
So after a delay of an hour (we were lucky) we continued on.
We ended our day in Oregon (we are now in the Pacific Time Zone).  Eastern OR is green with hills bordering on mountains for this Midwesterner.  We followed the Oregon Trail Route for a good part of the day today.  We should have about a 5 hour drive tomorrow. Although there is snow forecast for Snoqualmie Pass so that might slow us down. 
The PCT also crosses Snoqualmie Pass.
If the weather holds out we'll have to stop and commune with PCT and tell it we'll see it in a few months.

No comments:

Post a Comment