Fall Break: An Update

I'll give you a quick¹ update on what has been (and what will be) going on during fall break. Maybe I'll do a full recap upon return to school.

On the way home Friday afternoon, I noticed the "battery" warning light was illuminated on my car's dashboard. I didn't think much of it. Until. I had to stop in Ames to drop something off at a friend's place, and when I had to stop at a stoplight (the first time a stop was necessary in nearly 3 hours) my car stalled. Wouldn't even turn over. I got out, extremely embarassed as all of Ames stared at the idiot with the stalled car, and took a seat on my trunk so as to direct traffic around me and to make frantic phone calls. It started again after a few minutes and got me to my friend's place. On the way out of Ames, it stalled again. So I waited and everything worked out - the car started again. Between Ames and Des Moines, I had devised a perfect route that would require no stopping until I arrived at my house. The car only stalled if I had to stop, see. The car would have none of this scheming, however.

As I was driving on I-235, I turned on my lights because it was quickly getting dark. So I flipped the switch, but the lights didn't come on. This concerned me for a minute or two until my concern quickly changed to the fact that my car was now losing power in surges and I knew that it would soon die. The car did not care that I was doing 75 on the freeway, enclosed on either side by cement blockades, no, it was going to die. What's worse is that there is immense construction going on and a few of the normally existing bridges and offramps are now temporarily non-existant, thus eliminating several escape routes.

I floored it - as much as I could in the dying and sputtering car - with the intention of getting to the nearest offramp. About a half mile before my targeted offramp, the car gave up. I slowed and coasted onto the offramp and maneuvered my dead vehicle to the side of the ramp. I made the necessary phone calls - my mom - and sat by the side of the road, again looking like an idiot.

It is 216 miles from my driveway to my parking spot in Decorah. Give or take a mile. The offramp where my car ended up is only 2 miles from my house. If you do that math, I made it more than 99% of the way home. The 1% my car couldn't go cost $60 for towing and $200 for an alternator. Welcome home, Jake. Welcome home.

Because that story ended up being longer than I had intended, I will make a bullet list of what has transpired since that incident.

That's it for now.²

1. Unfortunately, at home I am still limited by a dial-up connection, so a much longer and detailed post is out of the question. Not entirely, but mostly. [↩]
2. I realize my previous annotation is almost invalidated. I guess it's a good thing I said it wasn't entirely out of the question. Gotcha. [↩]