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Engine Issues and El Morro
This morning we had some mellow “down time,” to balance all of the activities that we had packed into the past 8 days. Genevieve and Sebastian enjoyed the heated indoor pool in the hotel next to our RV park (one of the perks of camping here), and I did a few loads of laundry at the 24-hour laundromat next door.
Here are the kids jumping into the pool:
The laundromat was bustling. Every machine was busy spinning and humming. People stood guard over their wheeled baskets, even when they weren’t using them. All the seats and countertops were taken, by either people or their belongings. A woman reluctantly moved her basket from a seat so that I could sit down beside her. I eventually moved to a cozy spot on the floor.
I sat and listened to the voices around me, many of which were speaking a Native American language that sounded like Navajo. New Mexico has a large Native American population, and the Navajo Nation sits just north of Gallup. In the laundromat, about 95% of the people looked like they were Native American. (I must note that my own looks do not reflect my Native American bloodlines.) The words swirling around me had a very different rhythm from spoken English. Navajo is a very complex language. I thought about the World War II “Navajo code talkers” who had served the U.S. military by creating an unbreakable code based upon their own language.
After lunch, we decided to take a 1 1/2 hour drive to visit El Morro National Monument. I had spotted the Monument on our map yesterday afternoon. Since I had never heard of El Morro before, I was curious to learn more about that special place.
Genevieve and “Mr. Bear” were ready for the adventure:
Along Route 66 was the historic railroad depot that had been restored and transformed into the Gallup Cultural Center.
The Center has a Native American art gallery, a Storyteller museum with exhibits on local Native American cultures, a gift shop with Native American jewelry and crafts, and a café.
As we were driving through Gallup, the RV engine light popped on, and the RV went into “limp mode”—reducing the gears and preventing the RV from going more than a very slow speed. This occurs when the vehicle computer senses a problem that may cause serious damage to the engine; as a protective measure, the engine automatically reduces its power. We didn’t know this at the time and thought that our engine was failing.
After calling several repair shops, we wound up at a place that ran a computer diagnostic and determined that the RV engine light had been triggered by low fuel pressure. Ben had just replaced the fuel filter before we left on this trip, so he didn't think that we needed a new one; and everything else checked out fine. The mechanic turned off our “service engine” light, and the "limp mode" problem went away (for the time being).
Ben at the shop:
The kids and I were able to stay inside the RV while the mechanics looked at the engine. Genevieve and Sebastian were very patient.
By the time we left the repair shop (still perplexed regarding what was causing the problem), it was mid-afternoon. We realized that we wouldn’t reach El Morro National Monument until 4:30 p.m., and that the Visitor’s Center closed at 5:00; however, we still wanted to visit the site. Off we went!
This jet was displayed outside of the small Gallup airport:
Our 2-lane road headed south from Gallup, and then turned east. Here are some views of the interesting rock formations along the way.
The Zuni mountains on our left had a line of yellow rock along the ridge:
A few of the homes we passed:
The sandstone bluff on the right side of the road ahead is “El Morro,” which translates to “the headland.”
At the base of El Morro is a waterhole that is 12 feet deep. For hundreds of years, the water there quenched the thirst of many people--Ancestral Puebloans who lived nearby, Spanish conquistadors, Native American travelers, and U.S. Army troops passing through the area. These people made over 2000 carvings into the rock--petroglyphs, dates and messages. In 1906, the bluff was declared a national monument.
From the roadway, we couldn’t see any carvings on El Morro.
However, the park has a half-mile trail (the Inscription Trail) that leads to the waterhole and hundreds of carvings. A 2-mile loop (the Headland Trail) goes all of the way to the top of the bluff. We were disappointed to find that we had arrived too late for either hike. We needed to have arrived by 4 p.m. for the Inscription Trail, and by 3 p.m. for the Headland Trail.
We contented ourselves with looking at the visitor center exhibits. We learned that Pueblo people built homes on top of El Morro between 1200 and 1400 A.D. At one time, there were 850 rooms there. Early in the 1500’s, the Puebloan people moved a short way west to the area where the Zuni people currently live. The Zuni call the El Morro site “Atsinna” and consider the area to be sacred.
Here is a diagram showing the locations of the Native American Pueblos at the time the Spanish invaded this area.
The visitor's center offered a video that showed images of the Atsinna ruins, the waterhole, and some of the carvings on El Morro. We watched the images and pretended that we were seeing them from the nearby trail.
Atsinna:
The waterhole:
Some of the carvings:
Back in the parking lot, we looked longingly back at El Morro—so close and yet so far.
We will definitely come back here and hike the trails on another journey.
Ben got up on the RV roof to take some better photos.
Ben’s view:
He was able to get some good close-up shots:
The hillside behind us was catching the last of the sun’s rays:
We had a long drive back to our campground tonight, with the RV going into “limp mode” once again, causing a bit of worry.
The sudden “limp mode” condition would happen repeatedly during the rest of our journey, until we headed to lower elevations and warmer temperatures. Later, after many perplexed brows and much internet research, we figured out what the problem might be: The weather at night was freezing (with temperatures down into the teens), which caused the diesel to congeal; and the paraffin in the diesel solidified inside of the fuel filter. Once the engine was running, the onboard computer would get a signal that there was low fuel pressure, and the engine would automatically go into limp mode (we found this sudden engine decrease to be a bit stressful when going up a steep mountain on a 2-lane road, with cars stacking up behind us and nowhere to pull over). We discovered that we could temporarily "fix" the limp-mode if we pulled over, turned the engine off, and waited five to ten minutes before restarting the engine.
Tonight, we spent some time mulling over “what to do.” We had a flexible schedule for this trip, but we were planning to travel through more remote areas over the next few day--away from larger cities, and with vast distances between small towns. We weren't sure if we would be near a truck repair shop if the RV engine completely failed. Decisions, decisions . . . . We finally decided that we would forge ahead tomorrow as planned.
After dinner, we played some fun card games as a family. I went to bed optimistic that the engine issues would be resolved soon.
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