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I had a beautiful post written, and my freaking internet connection ate it! Rargh.
I had another vehicular adventure today. I spent 10 hours on campus doing schoolwork, so I had to get on campus early. Early enough that it was gloomy and foggy and I needed my headlights. Apparently, I forgot to turn them off once I got to campus. So they were on, ALLLL DAAAAY. Needless to say, when I got back to my car those many hours later, hungry and grouchy, the engine did not start. This necessitated a call to AAA, who helpfully sent a tow truck with a guy in it who had a portable battery charger with him. He got my engine started again, and then gave me some pretty standard advice: to let the battery finish charging, I should go for a 15 minute drive at 45 mph. Easy enough. So I tried to. I got some miles down a stretch of highway when I realized I had a problem.
See, it was now about 8:30 PM. The sun had set. I had my headlights on. And the headlights were powered....by the battery. So they started to fail. To dim and flicker. And then go out. Nothing like driving along at almost sixty miles per hour in the deepening dusk of night and suddenly have your dash and your headlights die on you. White-knuckled, I made it to a gas station, where I parked the car (lights off) and revved the engine constantly for about five minutes, hoping that would give me enough juice to see my way home. It didn't. I had to park and rev the engine twice more as I hurried home, through town and past cop cars, my headlights flickering and dimming all the way. I finally got back to the safety of my apartment lot, the engine smelling hot and me feeling frazzled and very, very nervous. My 15 minute joyride cost me an hour, and the battery never got fully charged. It should do well enough to get me started tomorrow morning, and after that I'll have a 3+ hour drive home for the weekend in broad daylight.
Hopefully, then, this is the end of my hair-raising little tale. Don't let your battery die at night, watch your speed and always have your keys in your hand so you don't lock them in your car. Or, you could just not be as ridiculously stressed out as I must be, to have the number of vehicular incidents that I have since January (speeding ticket, locking myself out, and now leaving my lights on). Whew!
I had another vehicular adventure today. I spent 10 hours on campus doing schoolwork, so I had to get on campus early. Early enough that it was gloomy and foggy and I needed my headlights. Apparently, I forgot to turn them off once I got to campus. So they were on, ALLLL DAAAAY. Needless to say, when I got back to my car those many hours later, hungry and grouchy, the engine did not start. This necessitated a call to AAA, who helpfully sent a tow truck with a guy in it who had a portable battery charger with him. He got my engine started again, and then gave me some pretty standard advice: to let the battery finish charging, I should go for a 15 minute drive at 45 mph. Easy enough. So I tried to. I got some miles down a stretch of highway when I realized I had a problem.
See, it was now about 8:30 PM. The sun had set. I had my headlights on. And the headlights were powered....by the battery. So they started to fail. To dim and flicker. And then go out. Nothing like driving along at almost sixty miles per hour in the deepening dusk of night and suddenly have your dash and your headlights die on you. White-knuckled, I made it to a gas station, where I parked the car (lights off) and revved the engine constantly for about five minutes, hoping that would give me enough juice to see my way home. It didn't. I had to park and rev the engine twice more as I hurried home, through town and past cop cars, my headlights flickering and dimming all the way. I finally got back to the safety of my apartment lot, the engine smelling hot and me feeling frazzled and very, very nervous. My 15 minute joyride cost me an hour, and the battery never got fully charged. It should do well enough to get me started tomorrow morning, and after that I'll have a 3+ hour drive home for the weekend in broad daylight.
Hopefully, then, this is the end of my hair-raising little tale. Don't let your battery die at night, watch your speed and always have your keys in your hand so you don't lock them in your car. Or, you could just not be as ridiculously stressed out as I must be, to have the number of vehicular incidents that I have since January (speeding ticket, locking myself out, and now leaving my lights on). Whew!
