Hola Amigos,
We have written many times about the challenges you face when you are trying to "Get away from it all". Bureaucracy is one of the issues and technology is the other. You would think that we would be having a problem with our boat. No, we had a problem with both of those issues when it came to renewing our car registration. We needed a smog check. Our 10 year old car runs great with super emission readings. Our problem is that we can not get our "Check Engine" light to turn off. Over the last few years we have spent beaucoup bucks on new injectors and several black boxes with no success. This week we took it to our mechanic who used a special device to turn the light off. He told us we have to drive at least 35 miles with the light off to get a pass on the smog check. 2 miles later the light went back on. We were desperate so we went online and Googled "Check Engine Light". It suggested "Reset engine light". Bingo! Turns out that disconnecting the battery for a few minutes turns the light out. Lewis drove the car 36 miles and brought it to the Smog Test Center. We passed! Another item off our list. When we come back in December our car will be legal. Of course the light's back on but we will deal with that in 2011. We have less than 3 weeks to go before we shove off.

Happy Googling to you until we blog again.

Mary Lee and Lewis