April, 2019

The month started with an eventful trip to Santa Barbara. As part of his training for third degree black belt, Rog is heading down to the main dojo for monthly sessions of specific training weekends. I went with him so he didn’t have to drive alone. We got as far as Kettleman City and the engine light came on. We continued on towards Paso Robles but only got about 10 miles down highway 41 and we couldn’t make it up the hills without turbo. The Sprinter has this safety feature that shuts turbo off if anything is wrong with the engine. Usually we can reset turbo by shutting down for a few minutes. No go this time. We finally called for a tow. After about 20 minutes, Tessa started up with turbo and we headed for the Dodge dealer in Paso Robles. We made it, but they don’t work on Sprinters. They recommended the Dodge dealer in San Luis Obispo. But Tess had shut down the turbo again and Rog didn’t want to use the freeway so we parked Tess and called for a tow again. It took an hour, but we got a real nice guy who took a detour to his mechanic in Santa Margarita who said our best bet was Mercedes Benz so we headed there. By the time we got to Alfano MB, it was just past 5 and they were closing up. In addition, they were really backed up and wouldn’t be able to get to it until maybe Wednesday. On the good side, they loaned Rog a MBE300 to use for the weekend and let us camp out in their lot. Rog made his training on Saturday and we spent Sunday touring the area. On Monday, we headed over to the local Elks Club where we had showers, a swim, a hot tub, and a nice dinner. They had RV spots so we spent one night there before heading back to MB.
By Tuesday, They were able to do a diagnostic and ended up recommending that we replace the computer module. Rather than wait for the part there, we decided to get a good night’s rest and then head home. We made it as far as Westley before the turbo shut down and even letting Tess rest for an hour didn’t reset it. So we decided to limp home. Without turbo, Tess went anywhere from 55-60 and had no oomph to pass or get out of a jam. It took almost 10 hours, but we made it. We called our mechanic who spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out how they could fix it but MB has made it so that only they can program the module. So next month we take it into our MB in Rocklin and get her fixed.

The day before we left for Santa Barbara, we took Tom’s speaker to him in Tracy and put the material on the speaker openings. The end project looked pretty neat. They have a couple more weeks to get ready for their move to Connecticut and the new home they have built. But they found time to chat with us for a while. I will really miss them.

While the Blooms went to San Diego for their Spring vacation, Rog and I took care of Scout, their dog. We would go by in the morning and take him for a walk and then I would go back in the evening and keep him company for a couple of hours while Rog was in class.

When the kids got back, they rode their bikes over to help me dye eggs for the Easter egg hunt. They got quite creative decorating!

On Easter morning, the family came over for breakfast burritos and then we had the hunt. Ryan got here a little early and helped Rog hide the eggs. Karissa had asked for a really hard hunt so they obliged. Fun was had by all!!

Rog continues to play with the model railroad. He has been laying ties, made a turnabout and continues to add mountains and waterfalls.

Ryan came by on Earth Day and helped us load all of our junk into his truck so he could take it to the free dump day. Rog headed down to SF Bay Area with Jay to train with Curt Wvong.

Our date this month was with Max. We took him to the Sacramento Model Railroad Historical Society to see their model railroad layout. The trains weren’t running, but the layout was really cool. Max found an elephant, a dragon, and a three legged lamb. We had a so-so dinner at Cecilia’s Diner and afterwards, headed to Coldstone for an ice cream.

We did some prep work for our spring project of replacing the deck in the backyard. I removed all of the stone from the drainage gutter and set it aside in buckets for reuse. With the junk gone from the side of the house, we were ready to remove the concrete drainage ditch, the sidewalks and the stone deck. We rented a small backhoe from Home Depot and it did a great job. We used a webbed strap to haul the chunks out to the driveway and had quite a pile by the end of the job. It took us four days, but the job got done.