Road Trip Interrupted

We left town with Starbucks in the coffee holder and Tim Hortons breakfast bagels in our laps.

Lots of water in the fields and ducks and geese in the water.

Had a good lunch at Olive R Twist Bistro in Cochrane.

As we left Cochrane I noticed a big new Toyota dealer amongst all the other development - Cochrane is growing fast.

As we merged onto the #1 highway the car suddenly turned sluggish and then the dashboard lit up with warning lights. I pulled off onto the service road and turned off the car. When I turned it back on we still had an engine warning.

So we turned around and drove back to the Toyota dealer in Cochrane. Luckily they were able to look at it fairly quickly.

The staff here were great, very friendly and helpful. When they finished looking at it the mechanic came out and went over what he'd found. There had been three errors - lean upstream, lean downstream, and loss of power. The lean parts could be faulty sensors but the loss of power was a little more troubling. Maybe the fuel pump? And it probably doesn't help that it's a complex hybrid Prius.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much more they could do right then. If we wanted to wait around till Tues. they could get parts in and replace the (expensive) sensors, but they weren't even sure that was the problem.

We decided to cross our fingers and continue. We had planned to get to Revelstoke today but after losing two hours and with doubts about the car we decided to camp in Banff. No problems with the car that far.

On our way to supper we ran into Greg from the Bike Doctor at their new Soul Ski and Bike shop. Supper was a cheese plate and pizza with Okanagan Pinot Noir at Bison Lounge.

Light snow falling steadily greeted us when we woke up. It's still coming down as we have breakfast at Wild Flour Bakery. Hopefully the roads aren't too bad over the mountains. And hopefully the car won't die on us in the snow in the middle of nowhere!