We headed north towards San Antonio. With most people on the I-35, we stayed to the secondary roads.
Our short drive yesterday...
Yesterday's drive, 35 miles (57 kms).
The road we took pretty much follows the Interstate...
Glad that everybody else is on the Interstate!
Just us and the road.
And the wildflowers.
Still nobody around.
Oh... what's that?
Cats.
There were five cats on the road. They scattered when we got close.
More wildflowers.
We pulled into the old downtown section of George West. I found a spot by the side of the road and looked up where the nearest laundromat was. Turns out that it was almost right across the road from where we were sitting!
We found a suitable parking spot, and Ruth went in to do some laundry. While she was doing that, I figured out why Sherman's "Check Engine" light had come on. He seemed to be driving fine, but had been a little rough at idle when I fired him up yesterday morning.
I checked the codes coming from the engine computer. There were two codes... 1 related to the MAP (manifold absolute pressure) sensor, and one from the O2 sensor saying that the engine was running rich.
When we had that engine problem back in Oregon in October, I had changed a bunch of parts that really didn't need to be changed. And when we found out what was actually causing the problem, I had kept all of the old original parts, knowing that there was nothing wrong with them.
One of those parts was the MAP sensor. So, I went and got the old 24 year old original GM MAP sensor and swapped it out with the new NAPA brand one I had installed last fall.
Sherman ran perfectly, and the warning codes were gone.
We had some lunch, and then went to the small grocery store in town to pick up some supplies for the next few days.
We went and checked out a possible overnight spot near a boat launch, and it would have been fine except for the steady drone coming from a natural gas pump station nearby. Almost as bad as listening to someone's RV generator running non stop.
So we headed to the county fairgrounds.
We had overnighted here in September 2011, and nothing has changed. The gates were wide open, and nobody around They have a huge paved lot in behind the fairgrounds buildings so we're shielded from the road out front.
Perfect for a night.
It was hot and muggy.
But at least the sun was shining through the haze!
The whole time we were parked here, we saw only one other vehicle. A pickup truck pulled up to one of the buildings and the guy went inside for a half an hour or so. Came out, and didn't even look our way.
Because of the hot and muggy conditions, the weather forecast had a thunderstorm watch on. And thunderstorm it did! Starting at about 5:00am this morning! It poured hard for about two hours, with lots of thunder and lightning. I read later that this area got three inches of rain! Glad we were parked on high ground.
It's still spitting at 10:0am, but it's supposed to clear up by noon.
That's when we'll head over to Choke Canyon State Park for a two night stay. Hopefully... I read that Choke Canyon was supposed to get some flash flooding due to this storm.
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Nice to be able to fix Sherman using the old parts.
ReplyDeleteAlways someplace of interest to stay.
Be Safe and Enjoy!
It's about time.
Kevin, knew that these parts would come in handy again. Goes to show that after market parts don't stand up to the originals.
DeleteLook out for alligators!
ReplyDeleteWe have been but we haven't seen any! :-(
Delete