deja vu

Well, here we are in a pickle all over again!  We were driving out of Pipestone, MN this morning after a nice visit to the Pipestone National Monument, and the "charge warning light" came on - a red battery icon - and pretty soon a bunch of other warning lights started coming on, Ellen felt the power steering go off, and then we lost everything electrical and were coasting for a while. That came back but we obviously couldn't go on like that, so we pulled off in a place where we could safely get fairly far off the road - but pretty much in the middle of nowhere, about 15 miles east of Brookings, SD. This was all pretty much a repeat of what happened last Thursday near Angola, NY. So it was AAA again! This time we made sure the truck would take us too! Since the likely explanation for this was a defective alternator (the one put in last Friday was a NAPA part and likely a rebuilt alternator), and since our Premier AAA membership allows free towing for up to 100 miles, and since Sioux Falls was about 75 miles away,  and since there is a Subaru dealership in Sioux Falls, Schulte Subaru, where we could likely get a new alternator, i asked to be towed to Sioux Falls. The truck showed up within about 30-40 minutes and indeed brought us to Schulte Subaru, and so here we are. No word yet on a diagnosis, but they did assure us they could give us a loaner if we needed to get somewhere like a motel. But it is just 2:47pm, so who knows, they may be able to fix it this afternoon. Will we ever get to Alpine? Sure hope so, but it probably won't be tomorrow night because we are still almost 1000 miles from Alpine.

Being towed to Sioux Falls - a view from the passenger seat into the rear-view mirror

Schulte Subaru waiting lounge

Wish us luck!