My wife took my wagon.....

Misty's Grand Prix ('01 3800 V6) is leaking oil....again. I've done the oil pan, crank seal, and valve covers gaskets. She called from work yesterday saying she's smelling oil in the car. When I got home yesterday it was over a quart low, and the bottom of the car is oily. Doh!

Both my kids are crazy about trains, and my father-in-law bought them tickets this weekend to ride in a full-size "Thomas the Tank Engine" at the Texas State Railroad in Palestine, about 180 miles from us here in Austin.

http://www.texasstaterr.com/events.php#thomas

I had to work this weekend, it's my busy season with my schools, but Misty had a motel lined up for Friday and Saturday with her folks up there in Palestine, and the kids have been looking forward to this. She was not about to cancel the trip.

SO my father has our '03 Suburban down in San Antonio for the weekend. The Grand Prix is down, the Cutlass has been down for three weeks now. That leaves the Roady and the 79 Buick. Of those two she took my wagon.

I got a call late last night and she of course made it up there just fine. Her parents rode their motorcycles out from Dallas. Sounds like they are all having fun. She didn't have a bad comment about the wagon...she'll of course never say it to me, but that's an awesome road car and nice with the kids.

ANYWAY I'm the batchelor dude tonight. I was too tired to drive out to the cruise-in tonight in the 79 Buick, just came home, kicked on the a/c and turned on the tunes here. I rode my motorcyle to work today. Was awesome this morning, low 70's, but HOT tonight, in the 90's.

Wife, kids and wagon will be home tomorow afternoon. Hope they got some pics....also home Misty didn't overdue herself....she's still very sore from surgury last week.

A day in the life! Will stick my head under the GP tomorrow and see if I can trace where all the oil is coming from. Please Lord say the oil pan drain plug is just loose!

Oh and to everyone's Mom's tomorrow, Happy Mother's Day!

-Mike

I went through this on my 3800 powered Riv, and still am. In my case its the oil pan seal leaking, no matter how many gaskets I throw at it, it just keeps on leaking. Supposedly the solution for this is a cast aluminum pan out of a Bonneville, those don't use that one piece windage tray gasket thing, and its sturdier. I bought one for my Riv after much searching for one, only to find out my oil filter adapter curves towards the pan preventing me from putting a filter on it! If you find its the pan and want to try this out, let me know.

I got under the Grand Prix and it looks like it's leaking from the mount for the oil filter adapter. I called Vatozone and the gasket is $25! Jeez! Will play with that sometime this week.

Misty and the kids got home from East Texas this afternoon. Come to find out they stayed at a bed and breakfast that was a good ways down a dirt road....and in Palestine Tx, the dirt is red in color.

In addition, Misty gave the kids Saltine crackers on the trip, and over in East Texas I don't guess they have big bat colonies to keep the bugs down like we have in Austin, because the front end, hood and windshield looked like a science experiment. Since the rest of the family came on motorcycles, when they went out to dinner last night they took the Roady. A mess.

SO from 4pm-7pm I cleaned the red dirt and saltine cracker crumbs out of the interior, then washed the car. The amount of muddy red water that came from behind the chrome trim on the lower tailgate was pretty impressive. It was 97 degrees this afternoon too, and I was a sweaty mess.

The pics look pretty good...in person it was a mess. Thankfully it was just red dust, not red mud. For once I'm glad it didn't rain this weekend!

Like them new redwall tires!


Bug-covered and cracker/dust filled Roady




On the upside the weekend ended well for my wife on Mother's Day. We went to "The Oasis", which is a really cool place built on a cliff high over Lake Travis. You can eat inside or on one of many decks that hang out over the lake below with a view of the hills in the distance. When the sun sets it's really pretty amazing.






The food is just so-so.....you go for the view. Had a good time, the Cerveza was good and cold and the weather had cooled down a bit, with a nice breeze.

Now winding down...wife and kids are sacked out and I'm about to follow. Do I really have to go to work in the morning?

Ha!

-Mike

Mike you could have taken a better pic from the highest level of the restaraunt.I would have
loved a better look at the beauty standing alone with all the umbrellas behind her.Usually
your pics are top notch but you must have been tired or something.Dont let it happen again
please!
Jim Gordon

Is that CURB RASH I see on that Impala wheel?

*gasp*


Restaurant looks pretty sweet!

Yeah it's curb rash... I got those wheels cheap off Craigslist...you should have seen them when I got them. I stripped of all the yellowed clear-coat and I keep them waxed, and they look good but are far from perfect.

As for the view from the decks at The Oasis, well Jim you'll get a kick out of this. If you look down and to the right from the decks, you see Hippie Hollow Park, the only "clothing optional" beach in Texas. It's not really a beach, it's rock cliffs going into the lake, but it's certainly an attraction.

You can't see anything too "racy" from the resteraunt, it's too high above the park, but when I have out-of-state guests come we always buzz by Hippie Hollow on my uncle's boat, just to see their reaction to rock cliffs covered with topless and sometimes bottomless folks.

Austin is a WEIRD place! Ha!

Here's a pic of Hippie Hollow, and you can see The Oasis on the hill to the right up above it. Ha!