Allagash Aftermath

You might find this amusing--- I did, in a weird way.

My car was a rolling disaster area after the far-northern Maine canoe trip; absolutely filthy after driving through the dust clouds on the logging roads, plus encrusted with pine tar, dead bugs and other organic substances.

I ran the car through a commercial wash to dislodge the worst of the crud, then used a solvent on the pine tar, then used high-pressure power washer, and then hand-washed the beast. It finally looked OK on the outside.

The inside wasn't quite as bad because the car has a cabin air filter which did a pretty good job catching the dust before it blew inside. I swabbed the seats and other surfaces, Windexed the glass, and the interior looked passable.

Then it was time to change the filters.

Here's what I found. There are 3 filters in the following photo. The white filter on the left is a brand new cabin air filter, for reference. The one in the middle is the used cabin filter showing the effects of the trip. The rightmost filter is the engine air filter.



When I pulled out the cabin air filter, a lot of crud came with it, but the ductwork had still more debris jammed above the filter:



In cleaning it out, this guy fell to the floor, quite dead:



I park in a garage at home, so I'm certain Mr. Mouse took up residence in my car's ductwork while it was parked at Umsaskis Lake in Maine. The mouse probably was attracted by the residual engine heat, and thought he'd found a great spot to set up for winter. The debris in the ductwork contained hundreds of little mouse-mouth-sized foam rubber pieces he'd chewed from somewhere inside the car, making himself a nice little cushiony nest.

He's an ex-mouse now. My driving probably scared him to death.

With an oil change and new filters, my mileage immediately jumped up by about 4 MPG--- those filters were *choked* with dust. But at least my car is clean and free-breathing again.

And, I might add, mouse-free.

I hope.