In mid September we drove to Monterey/Salinas to pick up things we had left in Zoe’s and Rory’s garages and brought them back to Colorado.  If was great to spend time with everyone and to soak up the coastal weather.  Unfortunately, during the trip my coughing became more debilitating than usual.  I went to an urgent care place, had a chest X-ray, took a Covid/flu rapid test, and got a prescription to slow down my cough.  I was negative for Covid, but positive for Influenza B.  Luckily, by the time we reached Zoey’s house, I was beyond the window for being contagious, but only felt half-well.  After going to soccer games, flying kites with grandkids and packing all our stored stuff into the van, we got ready to head back toward Greeley.

The final few days we were in Monterey, Van Morrison began a troublesome pattern of cutting out when the van was moving slowly in a low gear.  Took Morrison to the Ford garage, but first appointment available was third week of October.  No dice.  Took him to mechanic Alfonso, who ran all the computer checks, found nothing wrong, but suggested changing the oil filter.  That little item is located in a difficult to access spot on this model van (of course), and it took hours to get it off and a new one installed.  Verdict was that the filter was full of gunk, although it was not that old a filter, so maybe we had gotten some dirty gas somewhere in our travels.  No more issues, so we left Monterey after buying two more spare fuel filters to take with us.  Morrison performed smoothly until we were on the salt flats west of Salt Lake City, then as we pulled into a rest area, we felt the telltale tremor in the motor.  Our hearts sank.  Please, not another breakdown!  After the tremor, the motor did not die, but ran smoothly again.  We made the decision to drive up to I-80 and return to Greeley via Wyoming because the ascent through the Rockies in Wyoming would be less arduous than if we took I-70 thru Colorado.  We hated to make that route change because we had been looking forward to seeing the developing foliage colors through Colorado.  But, if we wanted to minimize the risk of a major breakdown, the I-80 route seemed safest.  We got home without much further incident (another tremor as we were parking at our motel in Evanston, Wyoming).

Back in Greeley, Dave has been slowly emptying the van of all our goods.  We have made a pile of all the stuff in the apartment that needs to live in the van now to be easily ready for future trips.  We will slowly carry all that downstairs and repack Morrison.  Meanwhile we are being creative in storing  the things (like cross country skis, old family Bibles, photography equipment) that we brought back from California.  The space above our kitchen cabinets has been useful.

We’ve been back for 8 days.  A couple trips to the grocery store, and no issues with Morrison.  Dave took the van to the Ford garage to replace the current fuel filter.  The thought was that if this filter was overly dirty, then we could narrow the problem down to the gas tank.  They changed out the filter, and on the way home the tremor was repeated.   Now we don’t know what to do about it.  We had wanted to take a trip up into Wyoming to see places like Independence Rock and Devil’s Tower.  Plus wanted to drive through Colorado on I-70 to catch some foliage viewing, but now we are stymied about how reliable the van will be.