swalker
Very helpful member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2014
- Messages
- 1,576
- Reason
- DX MND
- Diagnosis
- 07/2014
- Country
- US
- State
- CO
- City
- Vail
I am writing this from our trailer at Madison Campground in Yellowstone National Park. I will post this message to a new thread when we get to cell phone coverage so you can share some of the adventures we are having.
This has been an interesting trip. I debated long and hard about cancelling this trip, but after all of that decided to try the trip and take on each challenge as it unfolded. I made that decision about 2 weeks before we were scheduled to leave.
In the old days, we would travel to Yellowstone with one car loaded with a tent and a couple of sleeping bags. Now, it is as if we are on a major expedition.
For this trip, Lori drove the wheelchair van loaded with my Permobil C500 Corpus 3G wheelchair (my beloved C500s VS wheelchair is in the shop being repaired) and my Magic Mobiity X4 wheelchair. The van also carries our cat along with an unbelievable amount of cat support equipment.
I drive an SUV that tows the trailer. I require a special diet, so the trailer is loaded with a month's worth of food for me. How Lori squeezes all of that into the trailer's fridge/freezer is beyond me!
Before heading to Yellowstone, we decided to take the beautiful drive over Hagerman Pass, a six hour drive with signifiant four-wheel drive roads. At the top of the pass, many miles from any help, the car died. I was able to diagnose it as a repeat of a dirty Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor. This had happened on our return from our previous Yellowstone trip, so we new how to resolve the problem. We got the car started and it ran fine the for the rest of that day.
This happened in our Lexus Lx470, which is the vehicle we use to tow the trailer. Research indicated that a second failure indicated the MAF sensor was on its way out. It turned out that no Lexus or Toyota dealership in Colorado had one. In fact, I could not find any dealerships anywhere in the US that had it in stock. So, it had to be special ordered, and was not scheduled to arrive until Monday, two days after our scheduled departure to Yellowstone on Saturday.
The dealership told us to check in on Saturday, as the part might arrive early. We packed as if the part would be in on Saturday. Saturday morning the dealership let us know the part had arrived. We scurried to finish our packing and headed for the dealership, which took us on a 1.5 hour longer drive to our first scheduled overnight stay in Pinedale Wyoming.
We made it to the dealership and with my wife's help were able to replace the MAF sensor. The car ran perfectly after that. Whew.
We then headed off to Pinedale. Along the way, my cell phone died! It started continuously rebooting. This had happened a week before, and I had rebuilt the software from the original factory settings. I thought that had fixed the problem, but it had not.
We finally made it Pinedale that night and I slept very soundly and very long. It is a good thing the checkout time was noon! We left the hotel a bit after noon.
I will take a break here and post more to this thread as I have time and conectivity.
Steve
This has been an interesting trip. I debated long and hard about cancelling this trip, but after all of that decided to try the trip and take on each challenge as it unfolded. I made that decision about 2 weeks before we were scheduled to leave.
In the old days, we would travel to Yellowstone with one car loaded with a tent and a couple of sleeping bags. Now, it is as if we are on a major expedition.
For this trip, Lori drove the wheelchair van loaded with my Permobil C500 Corpus 3G wheelchair (my beloved C500s VS wheelchair is in the shop being repaired) and my Magic Mobiity X4 wheelchair. The van also carries our cat along with an unbelievable amount of cat support equipment.
I drive an SUV that tows the trailer. I require a special diet, so the trailer is loaded with a month's worth of food for me. How Lori squeezes all of that into the trailer's fridge/freezer is beyond me!
Before heading to Yellowstone, we decided to take the beautiful drive over Hagerman Pass, a six hour drive with signifiant four-wheel drive roads. At the top of the pass, many miles from any help, the car died. I was able to diagnose it as a repeat of a dirty Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor. This had happened on our return from our previous Yellowstone trip, so we new how to resolve the problem. We got the car started and it ran fine the for the rest of that day.
This happened in our Lexus Lx470, which is the vehicle we use to tow the trailer. Research indicated that a second failure indicated the MAF sensor was on its way out. It turned out that no Lexus or Toyota dealership in Colorado had one. In fact, I could not find any dealerships anywhere in the US that had it in stock. So, it had to be special ordered, and was not scheduled to arrive until Monday, two days after our scheduled departure to Yellowstone on Saturday.
The dealership told us to check in on Saturday, as the part might arrive early. We packed as if the part would be in on Saturday. Saturday morning the dealership let us know the part had arrived. We scurried to finish our packing and headed for the dealership, which took us on a 1.5 hour longer drive to our first scheduled overnight stay in Pinedale Wyoming.
We made it to the dealership and with my wife's help were able to replace the MAF sensor. The car ran perfectly after that. Whew.
We then headed off to Pinedale. Along the way, my cell phone died! It started continuously rebooting. This had happened a week before, and I had rebuilt the software from the original factory settings. I thought that had fixed the problem, but it had not.
We finally made it Pinedale that night and I slept very soundly and very long. It is a good thing the checkout time was noon! We left the hotel a bit after noon.
I will take a break here and post more to this thread as I have time and conectivity.
Steve