It's always important to be prepared when going on a road trip, especially if you plan on going to an unfamiliar place (like the middle of Arizona). Here's an incident I had and what I learned from it. Hopefully you won't run into the same problems.
What I brought along for safety:- Laptop with Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 (without GPS) - Mapping software that doesn't require the internet
- Power inverter - to charge laptop/cell phone via cigarette lighter
- Paper maps of destinations, including directions
- Flashlight
- Blanket
- Jumper cables
- First aid kit
The incident:
After dinner at Kingman, we headed off to Flagstaff. The two places are ~150 miles apart and we had to make the drive at night, on the two lane I-40. Sometime during the drive the battery light starts to flicker. Then the battery light goes back to normal...then it starts to flicker again, staying solid for longer durations. Then the headlights start to dim. At this point, we're still over 100 miles to Flagstaff. And we didn't have any cell phone reception. What made it extra not fun were the storm clouds I could see flickering in the distance. The three options were:
- Continue to Flagstaff
- Go back to Kingman
- Find another place to spend the night
We felt going to Flagstaff would be too risky. I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing how long my car could go with the battery slowly discharging.
Options 2 and 3 were the best options left. Going back to Kingman would require that we find an exit, so I looked for the nearest one on my laptop. It happened to be ~30 miles away from Seligman, which I could see from my laptop, included a few businesses, including a motel. Unfortunately, it didn't list any car repair shop. I unplugged the power inverter, turned off the fan, made sure the windows were rolled up, and turned off my deck. We then headed over to Seligman.
Now I wondered about what I should do about towing since there was that chance the car could die on the way to Seligman. Since my map didn't have a car repair shop listed in Seligman, I felt the next best option would be Flagstaff. It still would cost me a lot of money though. It was time to give AAA a call. Good thing I'm a member.
But the bad thing was that I couldn't find my card. 99% of the time I have my AAA card on me, but that night was that 1% of the time I didin't have it. I waited until I got reception, then I began to call my roommates. I put all of my old cards in a file folder in my apartment. My roommates found an old card, and gave me the AAA number and my account number. I called up AAA and after a bunch of phone tag, found out my number had changed and I had a sweet deal where I get 300 miles or something of free towing. That would be more than enough to make it to Flagstaff. They also gave me my new account number. Whew.
We were also able to make it to Seligman, and we found a hotel with a vacancy. The guy at the counter told us of a auto repair place in the town. Good to know that there actually was a place, and that the software just didn't catch it. Unfortunately, he said they overcharged. Ouch. And he didn't have their number. But at least he told us the general direction of where it was.
To look up their number I used
Google SMS (it's free!) to find auto repair shops in Seligman, AZ. Their number was listed. Why didn't I think of Google SMS sooner and use it to double-check the Streets & Trips results? It would have really eased my nerves.
In the morning we went to the repair shop, they charged me $33 for the diagnosis fee, and fixed the problem. What was the problem? Corrosion at the battery terminals. The guy cleaned it up really fast and we were on our way.
The Lessons:- Bring AAA card if you have one
- Check car to see that it's in working order (even the battery terminals)
- Remember to not rely on just one source for business listings
The weekend was pretty fun because of my stay at Carlsbad. But what made it really good was knowing that my room was more organized thanks to some stuff I got from Ikea, which brings me to the topic of today's post.
