We begin our Florida Road Trip, 2018. The ultimate destination is Sarasota, where Amy's Parents live. There aren't too many points of interest on our "must see" list until we get to Texas. We have 5 days to get there and it's 2,500 miles away, so it's 500 miles per day to start out.
We start on Saturday morning, March 17, with tonight's stop being Yreka, CA. We hit the usual spot, Country Cousin in Centralia, for a late breakfast halfway to Portland. While there, Amy finds a nice fleece jacket in Eddie Bauer to replace the one she used on our Road Trip of last spring. Well fed, we head south.
Our next stop is in Eugene, OR. A little before 1 PM, we look for a lunch spot and find that Togo's, a favorite San Jose, CA haunt of ours from oh so long ago, has invaded Oregon. We each have a nice avocado & turkey and head out. While doing so, we come across a fellow waving an American Flag at a major intersection. He has a large sign, and while we pass, we can read it: "Trump, Fire Yourself". Oh yeah, we are in Eugene...
We continue south and everything is going fine until we pass the last Ashland exit at mile marker 12. All of a sudden, we get a message from our car's computer that we should safely pull over and turn off the engine due to some issue with oil pressure. Those of you who have been on that stretch of road may recall that it is a gentle uphill run all the way up to 4,300 ft. high Siskiyou Pass. The right shoulder is dedicated to an extra lane for slow trucks lumbering up the hill. No stopping here! We continue on to Exit 6, the first available exit, pull over, stop the engine and call BMW's Emergency line through our car. It's a bit weird, we have to pull down on a latch to push the SOS button. Feels very "Failsafe". It's just after 5 PM. We are about 20 miles from our stop for the night, but the BMW service is 30 miles back north in Medford. That shop closes at 6:00 and tomorrow is Sunday. It doesn't sound good...
The comedy continues as we get connected with a tow-truck driver who should be here in 30-40 minutes. We also called ahead to BMW Medford to make sure a mechanic will be there when we arrive. Nothing bad is happening in the engine that we can tell, no noises or strange car movements. The tow-truck arrives and we make it to BMW without further incident. The tow-truck is actually very clean and the driver is most hospitable. After a few minutes, the mechanic diagnoses the problem as a missing o-ring somewhere inside the oil distribution system. Easy fix and after a 3 hour delay, we head south again. No further issues, we find our hotel and check in.
Dinner, much delayed, is unfortunate. We recommend that if you find yourself in Yreka at the Jefferson Roadhouse, you stick to steaks or burgers. The fare we chose was beneath suboptimal.
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