Reply #82: moi!

[iverglas]

The Suzuki (please -- Samurais were for sissies and wannabes) could do a touch over 135 km/h (about 85 mph) downhill with a tailwind -- which I needed to do if I was gonna get up the next hill and still be doing 30 mph when I got to the top.

This is how I got through West Virginia, I think it was. When my battery light went on as I was roaring down one of those big hills, it confounded me. I pulled into the next garage-looking place, where the two good ol' boys with beer and dog had never seen such a creature. They did spot eventually the dangling alternator wire, and put it back on. So after that when my battery light came on, I just stopped and reattached the wire.

Until that fateful day in Missouri en route home from Plano, the date and place that the alternator chose to die ... When we finally got across the border, we went to a junk yard and got another one. But not before the idiot customs guy got all snarky about how I had stopped 3 feet before I got to his booth and got out of the car, like I did it on purpose. I mean: we could go push the car the 3 feet to where you are and then get back in and we could have this conversation through the car windo, or we could just have it while I stand here and then we'll push the car back onto our merry way ...

Anyhow. Car maintenance is not one of my fortes or favourite pastimes. And I reap the consequences not infrequently.

But come to think of it, I did almost run over some moronic sports car object once, when I did my shoulder check before changing lanes and didn't see it hiding down beside my wheel.