Smoke, and lunch in Artesia, New Mexico 9-19-05

Bernie, Dick, and I set off before sunrise from Midland to Ruidoso. Not too far in were at a traffic light, and Dick's car started billowing smoke from the tail pipe. At first he thought it was a fire, but it was just lots of white/grey smoke from the tail pipe. The engine started and ran fine. The best guess was a blown head gasket. Fortunately there was a Ford dealership right up the street.

We called the support vehicles to let them know about Dick. The plan was for him to get the engine checked and hopefully repaired, and either catch up or put the car in the trailer and fix it further down the road.

To make a long story longer, Dick drove into Ruidoso under his own power just a couple of hours behind us! The problem turned out to be a bad batch of gas. Dick said it didn't even smell like gasoline. We all filled up at the same stations, so we can't figure out what happened, but at least it is fixed. They drained his tank, cleaned the carbs, and he was back in business.

After we left Dick at the Ford dealership, Bernie and I fell in with the Saga group. They are a great bunch, and we enjoyed the day. We pulled in for lunch in Artesia, and drove through the mountains together. There were some car problems, I'll write about them in another post.