Our final day was spent driving through Nevada, Utah and half of Colorado. We noticed the whole truck start to shake pretty violently the more we drove. Finally home and grabing our mail in town, I noticed the whole truck smelling of oil. Sure enough, the entire undercarriage and rear of my poor 4Runner was covered in oil, and there was a terrible knocking sound as we drove to the house.

First thing the next Monday morning I dropped Kate off at work then drove to the shop. After several hours they finally got back to me that it was the rear differential that was blown. I guess somewhere along our trip, a seal got blown and leaked oil from the differential, which caused the bearings to overheat and basically blow up. Thankfully the rear axle was still in good shape, but the $1,600 repair bill wasn’t something we wanted to hear. The trucks still in the shop and in the meantime we’re being gouged with a $60 per day rental car. You don’t have very many options here in the boonies.

If you haven’t done so already, I’ve posted all of our good photos on the site. You can see them all by following this link:
Pacific Northwest Road Trip Photos

You may also want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to start from Day 1.