If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always had.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Service Engine Soon

We had our van tuned up the week before Rendezvous, to the tune of $400+. You can imagine my surprise when, two days after I got home (after a 700 mile round trip), the Service Engine Soon light came on.

I knew it was nothing serious. We just had the daggone thing done. I figured it might be an air filter that didn't get replaced or something.

Today, while running errands, we stopped by Auto Zone. The nice man plugged his little mini computer into the port under the steering wheel, studied the display for a minute, and asked, "Did this light come on after you put gas in the car?"

"Well, yeah," I said, "about two days after."

He nodded, laid his toy on the driver's seat, and stepped to the back of the van. He opened the door to the gas tank, put the cap back on, and came back with a small smile. "I'll just get that light turned off."

Eric was very good and stifled his laugh. As we drove away, I said, "Well, at least it was a cheap fix. Who'da thunk it?"

Monday, April 10, 2006

A few pictures

Remember the tornado I mentioned? These were taken a quarter mile southwest of where we camped, at Wynnwood, near Castalian Springs, TN.









These cedar trees were a good 50 feet tall, and the tops were twisted off and dropped like they were soda bottle caps.









This one shows better what is left of the trunks.













This is Vicky and me in the garden at Wynnwood. (The trees are to our left; your right.) Wynnwood is the largest standing wood building in TN, and it was a stage coach station in the mid-1800's. (As an aside here, it scares me a little how much I look like my mom did when she was my age. She's not a redhead, but the style is the same. Might be that the cloak was hers; yeah, that must be it.)






Vicky was goofing off here, but these are one pair of gillies--or Scottish moccasins--that Dad and Alex made last year. Dad had a big piece of upholstery grade leather, and it turns out to have made very comfy footwear. If you unlace them, they look rather like hands, and the fingers curl around your toes. We've beaten the crud out of ours and they still look great. The downside is they tend to pick up grass and pebbles, and they don't stay dry very long in the rain.