MARQUETTE – Day 29

California, here we come, right back where we started from.  Wells, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA, 405 miles.  Left real early in the morning, heading west.  You know how you can tell it is real early and you are heading west???  The sun makes this neat shadow in front of you,,,, We hummed along for 75 miles, patting ourselves on the back, then found ourselves in a construction zone, single lane, semi on the rear bumper, flat out, foot on the floor, zipped up a hill, started down the other side, and “do you smell oil??”   and then, “I smell something hot!!” and then looked in the rear view mirror at a big cloud of smoke.  Figured we were done, I think the Chevy man in the picture thought we were done also. But,,,, no good Ford is going to quit in the presence of a Chevy man. Holy cow, where did all that oil come from?

Undercarriage was dripping, dipstick showing essentially no oil,  But,,,,,, still sounds okay, not pumping oil out at idle, didn’t seem to be smoking any more, so we concluded to add a couple quarts, and drive a little more gently,,, and check the oil in a few miles. Not sure what went on there, oil splashed onto the exhaust pipe???  or the babbitt in the rear main rearranged itself????   or your guess is as good as mine???   After 22 more miles at a sedate 50 mph, we weren’t losing too much more oil out the rear main, so we kept going, checking the oil every 50 miles, light on the throttle and believe it or not, finished off the day with one more quart.  For sure, the leak is very sensitive to throttle setting, over Spooner Summit also sent out some oil.  We sent a message back to the Nicholsons, “just follow the drips.”  You want to see a welcome sight???  Here it is,,,,,,  Lake Tahoe,,,,, And the welcome sight at Tahoe,,,,,, Gonna sleep good tonight,,,,,,  We did hear from Nicholsons, they are in Montpelier, ID.