Road Trip Truck Troubles

I need to preface my visit of Yosemite a little bit and frame it within some truck troubles. I was on my way into the Park, having picked up my camping permit at Wawona campground, and wanted to get into the Valley for some evening pictures. The “Tunnel Lookout” has a parking area that provides amazing views into the heart of the Yosemite Valley including landmarks like Bridalveil Falls, El Capitan, and Half Dome. The problem came when I started my truck and tried to turn on the lights. No luck. Somehow over the course of that day my headlight switch shorted out and I had no way to drive at night. Thus my desire to visit the Valley proper that evening was thwarted and I raced back to camp for the night.

The interior of my pickup torn apart trying to get
at the headlight switch. Ultimately, all this wasn't
necessary.

Having no headlights would have been miserable had my uncle in Santa Rosa and I not been able to fiddle with the electronics under the hood and replace a fuse.  Whatever we did got the lights back on and me back on the road.

My pickup also sounded a little rough on the road in Northern California. I crawled underneath at one point and discovered a large hole in my muffler. The explained the noise but I had no way nor the time to fix or replace it, so I pressed on. It got annoying enough over the long miles that I had to screw in my headphones and listen to my mp3 player both trying to block out the sound and  listen to some music since I couldn’t hear the radio very well over the exhaust.  Oh well. You’ve got to take “bitter with the better.” I should have expected some minor vehicle problems on a 6500 mile race around the West.