heat shield

When Erik and I were driving home from Santa Maria, after visiting our friends the elephant seals, our car started to make a weird noise that scared me. Upon investigation, we found that something on the underside of our car had come loose. It was periodically scraping on the ground, which was the sound we were hearing.

To make a long story short, it fell off, and we knew it would. We were on Highway 1 at the time, and Erik made a quick U-turn and picked it up.

We took photos of it for my dad to tell us what it is, and he said it's a heat shield for the exhaust, that we don't need to be worried as long as we don't drive it in tall, dry grass, and that he'll reattach it for us next time we visit.