The past week has been interesting to say the least. As I was leaving Spokane, making my way across Washington on I-90 West going a comfortable 78 mph, my car suddenly downshifts, starts decelerating and eventually stops running, not before I moved from the middle lane to the shoulder, thankfully. Obviously, I’m a little freaked out by this since my car is just over a year old with, at that time, not even 30,000 miles on it. Since it’s still under warranty I called Ford roadside assistance and had them tow me to the nearest Ford dealership which was in Moses Lake, WA. I don’t want you to get the impression that I handled this well, I did call my Dad crying, sobbing is probably a more accurate description actually, and I yelled at my Mom when she came into the conversation late and asked me a question that I’d already answered. Anyway, I get to Moses Lake and tell the service guy what happened and he says they’ll take a look at it but it may be a few days depending on what exactly is going on. They got me a rental car and I got myself a room at the Best Western, which has an AMAZING view of the lake and is GORGEOUS at sunset.

I get all my crap into my room, lay on the bed and cry for about a minute. I went to the hotel bar to have a few drinks and some dinner. I met a couple of really great people there and had an AWESOME night so I suppose it wasn’t such a bad thing that I broke down where I did. 😉

The next day I got a call from the service manager and he tells me that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the car and it’s ready to go. He said, they couldn’t find any codes for it, they hooked it up to the computer and there were no updates for it, they took apart the air cleaning system and cleaned out some hoses thinking that some debris may have gotten in there and caused the computer to act up, they checked the rest of it over and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it so it’s ready to go. While I’m kinda skeptical about that I take him at his word that they checked everything and it was a weird computer glitch and I’ll be fine. So, I take my car back to the hotel and, rather than get right back on the road, I sit by the pool and read, why spoil a perfectly sunny day with driving.

I head out the next day, bound for Seattle. I have to admit I was tempted to turn around a few times and go back to Moses Lake. It was peaceful, had a beautiful view and the people were nice, would you wanna leave? But, I continued on. I saw some sights in Seattle and kinda snuck into the Space Needle without paying, in my defense I thought it was one of those things where you pay once you get up to the Observation Deck…guess not, oops.

It’s now Friday and I’m heading out from Auburn, WA, just south of Seattle, to see some lighthouses and head into Oregon. Well, 30 miles from Aberdeen the transmission light AND the engine light come on!! So, I limp my way to the dealer in Aberdeen, which is Kurt Cobain’s hometown in case anyone was wondering. I had run a vehicle health report on the car and showed the guy in service the message when I told him I needed to have the car looked at. Well, once again, there was nothing wrong with the car. They checked for codes, there were none, but this time when they hooked it up to the computer there was an update. So, seeing as they could find nothing physically wrong with the car, there were no codes and it took an update they sent me on my way.

100 miles later, just past the “Thank you for visiting Cape Disappointment” sign the damn lights come on, AGAIN! This time things are worse, I had to do a rolling restart of my car 3 or 4 times, I think, to get across the Astoria bridge. I called the dealer in Astoria, their service department was already closed and the sales guy tried to sell me a new car while I was on the phone trying to get service…dick. I found a dealer in Forest Grove, which is where I had a hotel booked for the night. I called there and made an appointment to have the car seen at 9am. Now, how to get the car the 78 miles, through mountain passes, from Warrenton to Forest Grove…hmmm. Yup, that’s right AAA towing! There’s my car on the back of another flatbed…

Yesterday morning I bring my car to the dealer, tell the service manager what’s been going on, cry out of frustration, tell him I’m gonna need a loaner vehicle and I REFUSE to pay for a rental car since this is the third time it’s been in, in a week, for the same problem so Ford is gonna pay for my rental, give him a list of other things I want done while it’s there and then I go sit in the waiting room while they try to determine what’s wrong. Two hours later the service manager comes out and tells me that while there are codes for it, it’s not acting up for them and they can’t find anything physically wrong with it. HOWEVER, he does believe me that there is something wrong and he isn’t going to give me the car until there is some kind of resolution. FINALLY!!!! He tells me that while they can’t find anything wrong he thinks that, because of the problems I was having, it may be the throttle body assembly that needs to be replaced. He checked the wiring and the connections and everything is working fine but he thinks that is what is causing the problem. The lead computer tech isn’t back until Tuesday and, with the holiday, there’s nothing they can do until then anyway. So, I got a rental car and a hotel room booked through the middle of next week.

What should I do with the rest of my day since it’s only 11am? Wine tour through Oregon Wine Country? Why, that’s a FABULOUS idea!! And, so that’s just what I did! I took myself on a mini wine tour to 5 wineries in 4 1/2 hours. Next time I do that I will remember to eat lunch. You just can’t do that kinda thing on three pieces of bacon and biscuits with sausage gravy from breakfast at 8 in the morning. You end up a little tipsy, then you pass out at 9pm, wake up at 3:20am and can’t get back to sleep…

I’m gonna try to take a nap…