TORREZ TRAVELS

Anyone who read yesterday’s blog knows that after our first day riding we got a lot of cold rain, questionable directions, and a check engine light on our dash. Oh, and 2 perfect sand dollars, my granddaughter would want me to mention those! After calling around looking for a mechanic who could help us, I ended up speaking to a very kind and thoughtful gentleman who suggested we take the car to a nearby O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store and ask them to scan the code to find out what the problem was. (a very helpful free service they provide!) It turns out the transmission had a sensor that may have failed. One of the places I called said there were no transmission shops near us, and we should drive east towards Portland, 82 miles away. So this morning we started driving to Portland.

While Sterling was driving I remembered that the kind mechanic had also said we could call our own mechanic who had examined our car just two weeks ago. So I called them. When the check engine light came on, so did several other warning lights. About 5-6. Sterling had seen on Youtube that if the gas cap is not properly tightened, you can get random warning codes. For this situation, just tighten the cap and the codes should cease to show. He had done that last night, and the code was still showing this morning, but when we left O’Reilly’s it disappeared! When I talked to our mechanic they said that could very well have been the problem. If the light stays off, we have nothing to worry about! It has stayed off all day, as we drove closer to a transmission shop.

So here we are in Eugene, OR. The two places we were supposed to stay were camping spots. We like camping, but who wants to camp in the rain, in a tent! By driving east we have gotten away from the storm and are enjoying a nice dry stay in a hotel! Sterling, my wonderful husband, has taken the opportunity to dry off the bikes, and re-lubricate them.

So we will stay here for two nights so that we can pick up our schedule and we hope to try and get some riding done tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain too much!