June 19th

After a shower I head to the office to ask if there is a good mechanic in town. They mention 2 one can't look at it till next Wednesday. I don't think my boss would like that. Especially since I have no cell service here.

The other one can look at it today. I call AAA and they tow it to the shop. We pay for an extra day at the camp and try out the camp activities. I got my legs sunburned on the paddle boats. I think they don't get much sun while walking around because of my big belly. Oh well. The kids rent bikes and I nap.

We get the call it's a fuel pump. That's 1,114.16 the good news is the part is available in town. We have them put the new one in.

We get the van back and decide to see some mountains. How about close up. We take a road that shows on our map. It starts out nice, once we pass Ohio City we see a road closed ahead sign. Well the van has high clearance and all wheel drive let's see how far we can get, I think. So I give some lame excuse to Alisa "We don't know what road ahead is closed."

The road gets a little smaller but we proceed. We see snow and a mountain stream. So we let the kids and dog out to play. Burr the snow is cold. Derek, wearing sandals, is the first back to the van. We all pile in and keep on tucking. We climb and climb some more. There is a sign ahead: road narrows sharp mountain curves. I thought that is what we were on already.

The road is now about wide enough for 1 vehicle with about 2 feet on each side. Of course there is no guard rails and very steep cliffs on one side. So we go slow. As we near the top the snow gets thicker and is now taking up 2 feet on the drivers side. The packed snow is now about 3 feet high on my side and with road getting squishy from the melt a turtle could pass us.

We make it to the top of the pass at just over 12,000 feet. Wow what a view.

The kids play in more snow. Gretchen makes a snowman and Max digs a rock out of the snow pack, as a souvenir.

We head back down the other side and towards Tin Cup. We see a bunch of beaver dams, or is that dam beavers? I feel something funny. I stop the van. Flat tire. I put on the spare, which is low on pressure and we head back to camp.

Tune in tomorrow for the return trip to Precision Auto.