The car isn't running perfectly, but nonetheless we headed up from Carlsbad, NM to Carlsbad Caverns National Park (about a 30 mile drive each way). We got to walk down the "Natural Entrance" of the cave, over a one mile descent that goes down over 750 feet of switchbacks. Once down, we did another mile self-guided hike of the "Big Room." This was filled with interesting formations, but most impressively a big room! After lunch back upstairs, I went out to the parking lot to work on the car for about 45 minutes while the kids and Grandaddy spent some time at a park movie and checking out the visitor center. I came back inside in time for the ranger led "King's Palace" tour with a highlight of the complete darkness -- the volunteer light dimmer was Carter.
Kyle finished up a junior ranger book and got his badge, and then we headed to the Bat Flight. I learned today that the less precipitation there's been, generally the smaller the number of bats that come out of the cave. It has been drought-like for quite some time here, so there were barely any bats. No big mass at all. Oh well.
The caves are a neat place to see something completely different, and of course it's great to be in 56 degree air when it is 100 outside!
Technically, in a nutshell, the vapor lock is no longer the issue I'm chasing. I may be chasing that issue later, but now the car is fouling plugs. The little job I did in the parking lot of Carlsbad Caverns was to wirebrush the 12 exhaust plugs. By the time I was back at the motel the plugs were fouled again, so the car is running rich, even on just the dual-SU pumps (not using the auxiliary pump).
I had a pretty serious fuel leak I was uncomfortable proceeding with, but tonight I think I've remedied that with some teflon tape on the threads of a fuel filter "cap." If we can proceed without this leak, I'll continue to trudge on carefully but with an eye to finally solving the issue. This rich running is not sustainable for the remainder of the trip -- I need to fix this!
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