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Tuesday, 04/29/03; West Palm Beach, Florida

 

It has been a bit hectic today, friends!

 

The day started out in Key West with an almost clear sky. We were on the road by 0720 and were amazed at all the traffic coming into Key West. It was as bad as the “405” (freeway in Los Angeles) at “rush hour!” Fortunately, we were going against the flow and were soon out of most of the traffic. We were able to maintain the legal speed limit most of the way up the Keys, except for a delay for construction. That is where we started to have car troubles.

 

Dennis has been fighting a carburetor problem for several days. He has been unable to adjust a “rich” running carburetor, which has been fouling his spark plugs. Yesterday he changed to his spare carburetor and a spare set of plugs. It was an improvement, but didn’t solve the problem. Sitting at the one-way traffic backup caused his engine to load up. Once we were on the move, the engine wouldn’t run smoothly, accelerate, or provide full power. We stopped for a short “seminar” on carburetors where we combined the “best” parts from two malfunctioning carburetors. This seemed to help and we were soon on our way. Things were going pretty well. We took the Tollway into Miami and cruised at 50-55 MPH.

Florida tollway

 

When we came to the transition to the I-75, the transition was poorly marked confusing us and we ended up going north rather than south! We left the Interstate intending to reverse course; however, we hit a couple of traffic lights and the Olson’s car began misbehaving again. Dennis pulled into a service station where we spent a couple of hours having lunch, trouble-shooting and finally putting Smith’s spare carburetor on the car. This seems to have solved the problem, since we got back on the Interstate and made it to West Palm Beach, our destination for the day. The run from Miami to West Palm Beach was pretty fast. The temperature was over 100 degrees and the cars ran well with the A/C running.

 

Once we checked in, Joann and Keith went through a ritual that takes place every eight days: that is, organizing their pills. They have wallets with eight plastic zip-lock envelopes to hold pills. They take their large box containing the pill supply into their room and sort them out into the envelopes. This saves lots of time each day, as they can take the pills whenever is most convenient for them. Check out the process in one of today’s pictures.

  Joann & Keith fix their pills

 

Typical morning configuration

 for the Smiths

We hope to get online tonight so that we can send our backlog of letters and pictures.

 

The Dauntless Four – still plugging along and on schedule!

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