Randy and Katy Smelser

Americans living in Germany but citizens of heaven

August

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August: Technology, you can’t live without it and you can’t live with it. A warning light in the car came on. So we got home from vacation using back roads and not the freeway. Then two days later I washed the car before taking into the garage. The light went off and they found nothing wrong. But then 2 weeks later on the way back from Cologne the car started wheezing. We pulled off at an exit and the car died but started again and was fine so we went on our merry way. A couple of exits further it started again but even worse. Just one kilometre (less than a mile) ahead was a rest stop with toilets. After a 4 hour wait at the rest area in 30°C + (90°F+) sunshine with no shade (fortunately we had lots of water with us), we were loaded up and carried 2 hours home by the German AAA. It was the same problem as last year when we got stranded in Slovenia. Last year it was #1 injector, this time #4. We had the other two also replaced.

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Biking has been a great past time with Corona. I was able to go on a couple of 20-25 Km (12-15 miles) bike rides with our Syrian "Grandson". He loved it and we saw many new things for him: a canal with boats, deer and hawks. With money I had been saving we got a hitch put on the car and bought a used bike carrier. We made our first trip up to ride through the Heath. The heather was in bloom and the weather was passible. This was besides all the other trips we made around the county this summer, over 600 Km (400 miles) total.
Click on the picture for more summer biking pictures.