June 24, 2013

Got up early and got Flyer to the mechanic before 7am.

Even Oscar looked sad to be backtracking.

They told us everything the guy told us yesterday is fine and doesn’t need to be repaired. Yeah, that’s what we figured. Water pump, radiator fan, and the starter? We think not. But that auxiliary fan, that sheared off a few days ago when it got caught in the cord for the windshield solvent (not sure if I told you about that or not), that cooled the radiator from the front; needs to be replaced.

While Sparky and Carboy stayed with Flyer; Legoboy, Sister Bear, and I toured Chinatown by foot as the mechanic was within this area.

Erika, this is for you.

We tried some egg rolls from the Vietnamese restaurant and picked up some dumplings at the market for a different day. Then a stop in the bakery to get a few buns before heading back to check on Flyer’s progress

A few hundred dollars later at 2pm we are on the road with two new, larger fans. All the fluids looked good and we really need to get out of the hot, hot weather… It’s supposed to be 120 or something in southern Nevada tomorrow.

We crossed over into Arizona. The landscape was dry and the mountains were pure rocks.

The road seemed to be cut right through solid rock.

Some of the sandstone was smooth and striped

We exited for gas on Historic Rt 66.

When we got out to get gas in Arizona we found out the door to our water heater compartment had ripped off during our travel today! Turns out Legoboy was playing with this door at the mechanic shop and had failed to latch it properly. Bummer. We used some duck tape to cover the opening to try to keep the dirt out the best we can. Guess I’ll be calling to try to find one of those in the morning.

Random rock mounts dotted the roadside.

With a few very long hills we traveled up to 7339 ft elevation at the Arizona divide. We had to stop for a few cool down breaks but overall Flyer is working much better.

We decided that we’ll keep going to Flagstaff, AZ tonight, rent a car from the airport, and drive that back to the Grand Canyon tomorrow morning.

We found a KOA Kampground to spend the night.