Our flight home was uneventful; there were a couple of times where the turbulence got bad enough that the Captain told the flight attendants to stay in their jump seats, but it was nothing compared to our last day on the ship! We arrived at SFO 30 minutes ahead of schedule, and clearing Customs and Immigration only took a few seconds (Global Entry for the win!), but it took quite a while before our bag came out (it’s an open question which is less useful: the “Door Close” button on an elevator or an airline’s “Priority” tag on luggage).
We were home before 8am and faced with the challenge of staying up until 10pm if possible. I was fading badly in early afternoon, but a trip to our trainer woke me up nicely. I felt so awake that I decided to drive to the allergist afterwards; I took Diane’s Prius.
All was well until I was a few blocks from the allergist and suddenly the dashboard lit up with the Red Triangle of Death, the “Check Engine” light, and the “VSC” light. I drove slowly to the allergist for my shot; I brought the owner’s manual in with me to read while I waited.
Reading the manual and some threads on PriusTalk told me definitively that Something Was Wrong, which I’d already figured out. I called our mechanics at Auto-Tec and they told me to bring it in right away for a scan, which showed a code that indicated a problem with the inverter coolant pump (which they’d replaced twice already a few months ago). The mechanic reset the code and told me to drive home and let them know what happened.
At first, all was well, but when I was nearly home, there was a loud beep and the “Brake” indicator came on, along with the “Check Engine”, “VSC”, and “ABS” lights (but no Red Triangle of Death!). They all went out after a couple of seconds, but returned almost immediately and stayed on for the minute it took to drive home.
I’m bringing the car back to Auto-Tec tomorrow; I’m not sure if I’m going to drive it or have AAA tow it. I have to take both cars out of the garage early so that the crew installing our new whole house fan can use the driveway, so I guess that’ll give me a chance to find out if the lights come back right away!