I had a cool life-sized stuffed animal sheep dog that has been living at Simon's house for a few years now. I'd resisted putting anything on my roof racks up until this point, for fear of messing with my car's handling: it already handles poorly when I have it loaded down with everything I own. However, I just couldn't resist the cuteness despite my concerns, and Simon was very eager to get it off his hands.

Better the roof racks than the rear seats. I already had them piled higher than I was happy about, but I could still see a good portion out my rear view mirror, and things are stacked in a C formation in the front seat so that I can make out my side mirror. Although I believe its legal to drive with only two mirrors, I prefer to have as good of vision as possible for 2000 mile long road trips.

The winds chose to demonstrate my handling fears early on today. As I was driving near Alpine, they were kicking so hard that I dared not go above 30-40 on the 70mph speed limit road: I would have literally gotten blown out of my lane, and was pretty shaky as it was. Also, the battery and brake lights started flickering on and off on my dash, accompanied by buzzing sounds that seemed to be coming from the fuse box/dash direction. These had me rather concerned, but since neither brakes nor battery seemed to be having problems, nor anything else other than the warning lights (temperature was fine), I decided to attempt to ignore them while keeping an ear open for related problems: I figured it was hopefully just a fuse or wire that wasn't related to important functions. When I stopped off at the gas station, the couple in front of me was inquiring about where to park their RV to wait it out. The dog had to go. When I asked the lady at the counter if she wanted a giant stuffed animal dog, she looked at me in a nice but rather skeptical tone, and referred me to another woman who "loves stuffed animals." That woman looked a bit skeptical as well, but said that her grand daughter would like it. However, once she saw me pulling it out of the bag, she noted that it really was huge, and then went ga ga once she saw how cute it was and the great quality and condition. At least someone was made happy out of the ordeal :)

I got tossed around by the winds for many more miles, but not nearly as bad. Not too far after Alpine, there was a safety team on the other side of the road trying to upright a truck that had been blown on its side. I recalled the gas station attendant informing me of how the truckers had been coming in white knuckled.

I drove for another hour or so, through mostly empty land, with a small town sprinkled here or there. And then my CD player shorted out. I noted that I was entering El Centro, the only large sized town for hours around. I decided to call Simon and see what he thought about whether or not I should stop off at a mechanic: at this point I was strongly leaning toward it. However, my car answered that before he got a chance to say a word: stalled right in front of the main street into town. I was really lucky, the car picked the best place possible for hundreds of miles around to take a break, and it gave me just enough time to get over to the shoulder in a nice safe place to wait for AAA.

The tow people were genuine and friendly, and had their own shop. The problem turned out to be the alternator, and I was on my way to Yuma in a matter of hours. Of course, I'd been hoping to get a little farther today, but was thankful not to be stuck for days waiting for a part, and I really don't have reason to rush anyhow. I just hope that this isn't the beginning of the end for my car... its been so good, especially considering all of the abuse I've put it through, and its well over due for putting in some money... Things are so difficult once you drop that first few hundred: do you replace the next thing? And the next after that? I really don't want to buy a new car... Oh well, no point in worrying about it at the moment. At least I've made it out of California :)