“USA 🇺🇸 ~Oregon Oh No-Jonah Broke then Prineville to Newberg and Back”
We arrived in Prineville, yesterday, from Klamath Falls, and stayed with our dear friend, Linda, who doesn’t mind The Whale taking up most of her driveway. 💕
⬆️ The local cemetery has live guests, almost every night
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We had a busy week, and hit the ground running, starting our second morning…
*Stereo/antenna install in Jonah, today in Bend ⬇️
⬆️ Nothing fancy, but we are after the USB port, for keeping our phones charged, which I use for GPS and we use for listening to our music library in our phones.
*Major Detailing for Jonah, the next day by “Grady’s Detailing” whom we absolutely recommend if you are ever in Central Oregon.
He did a fantastic job! ⬇️
*A/C service on Jonah came next and, well, that didn’t go so great. I will explain more down below, but I doubt we will have our new A/C operational for the summer, as we have plum run out of time for ANY more mechanic time, before we head for Alaska. Fortunately the weather up north will not be too hot for the summer.
Yes, of course we have the convertible, but the A/C is for when we hit up a dirt/gravel road in our adventuring and we don’t want the filth in the Bug, with the top, down.
*Finally, The Whale got serviced in Redmond, as well. Got the Oil and filters changed, including the fuel one. This was super important as we will be driving about 10,000 miles in the next 4.5 months!
I’m telling ya… EPIC trip, incoming!
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Newberg⬇️
We drove from Prineville to Newberg, over the Santiam Pass and spent the weekend with my mom and saw other family members too, and enjoyed our time, together, very much.
It has been two years since we’ve been back to Oregon.
⬆️ Friendsview Manor in Newberg is quite iconic in my family. I’ve watched it grow in size over time, and there is a waiting list a mile long, for elders who want to move in.
My grandparents moved there 25 years ago, and then my mom, and step father moved in; after my grandpa passed.
My 101 year old grandmother passed a few years back, then my step dad passed, and now it’s just my mom.
⬆️ My mom; DeEtte
87 years young
⬆️ L to R: Dean/Bro, Rebecca/SIL, Vern and Debby BIL/sis
⬆️ My moms’ best friend, since I was in Jr High; Pat. Went to High School with her three kids. Incidentally, after all those years, Pat and my mom both became widows, very close to the same time.
Another bonus on our last evening, was getting to see a friend, though briefly, as she made her way to the Portland airport. Tonya and I met, after I moved to Texas. We lived in the same “hood” and we did so many fun things together over the years. We traveled, walked, rode bikes and swam.
….. Then I moved to California. it’s been nine years since we’ve seen each other, and she got to meet Daryl!
Thanks to Linda for helping salvage our trip over the pass to Newberg and back, which would not have been possible with your car! ❤️
We returned to Prineville, after a fabulous visit in Newberg, to wait on news of Jonah getting the new oil cooler.
⬆️ Squeaker
⬆️ Maiya
⬆️ Max
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Oh Bother ⬇️
We made it back to Prineville, after our weekend in Newberg. We had actually planned to drive The Whale and leave for Montana from Newberg, but with Jonah suffering a small oil leak then a gusher, our trip to Montana got delayed by almost a week, because her oil cooler split wide open!
We had noticed the small leak, while we were in Klamath Falls. We had hoped for a simple solution.
When we took her it to a mechanic in Prineville to get the service done on the new A/C unit, we asked them to take a peek at what was leaking. It took two days of these guys fiddle fartin around to not do anything productive, and the oil cooler, which had been dripping, completely split open, deeming it un-drivable.
Not only that, but we now have a compromised place on the motor hood, where the compressor for the A/C rubbed, once the belt was put on.
⬆️ Outside
⬆️ Underneath.. inside
…Back on the phone with VW guy in Kingman, because this local mechanic said the A/C had Freon in it, and couldn’t add any more. Kingman guy says that was impossible. Nobody knows, especially us. But now, the belt is off the compressor, since said compressor needs to be moved back about three inches, so it won’t damage our motor hood, any further Ugh.
⬆️ A/C compressor. Belt removed
At that point, we were calling over town for a mechanic who could replace the oil cooler on a VW Bug…… found one; three blocks from the other mechanic. Our friend Linda, fired up her truck with a hitch and we hooked up Jonah and towed her to the new mechanic.
Back on the phone again with the Kingman guy so those two could talk mechanic talk. Glad to report the Kingman guy did the right thing, and overnighted the oil cooling part and gaskets and told the mechanic he would pay for the repair! This saved us an extra week of waiting for a part, if we could have even found one. 🙏
The Parts from Kingman arrived on a Tuesday, and we got a call this morning on Wednesday from the awesome mechanic who worked his magic, to tell us he got the new part in, but the VW was dead after sitting for three days. The battery is a 2022, so there is a concern and current mechanic will check it out, prior to our picking her up.
Looks like the emergency blinkers might have been on, but not sure. It’s all good, as the battery charge worked and all is great there. Ideally, in the perfect world we REALLY wanted Jonah to be finished, while we still had a few weeks in Kingman, Arizona. It would have been nice to drive her all around, to work the “Bugs” out with mechanics standing by. But we are figuring it out, just the same on a wing and a prayer!
Tomorrow, we are officially heading to Montana; four days later than scheduled, but it all worked out and I’m very glad we had some wiggle room in our schedule to deal with a few “Bugs” in Jonah!
It’s far better to work these out while in the lower 48. That’s for sure!
As far as our plans for heading to Alaska on the 24th of May, it’s not exactly smooth sailing, because there are over 100 fires burning in Canada, along our route to Alaska. AND the AlCan Highway, which is the ONLY way into Alaska from Canada washed out last week. Last I heard, one lane had opened up, but it’s a long wait. We have two weeks, before departure from Montana, so hopefully things will improve up north.
My next blog will be of our time driving to Montana from Prineville, Oregon, and Glamping IN Montana with full hook-ups for the first time in 18 days!!
We are also going to Glacier National Park next week!
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About Us
Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More