Last month, I drove my van about 24 hours round-trip to Vermont towing a utility trailer with no issues at all. Last week, I drove 10 hours down to the Outer Banks towing the same trailer, no issues. On the way home, it rained a lot but the van soldiered on for about 8 hours. Then I screwed up.
I have a route that I always take and I know it well. I hate taking shorter routes that are suggested by the navigation software because they are always winding 2-lanes that are a PITA. I'll add 15 minutes for a nice smooth road that is straight and nonstop. But we made a long stop at Bass Pro Shops for lunch and shopping, and I wanted to shave some time. So I took the winding road through Paw Paw VW (lovely country, would have been great in a sports car) to shave 30 minutes, knowing it was really curvy.
About 15 minutes in, the idiot lights start coming on. Then the van starts losing power. It struggles into a pull-off in the middle of nowhere and dies. My jump-starter starts it once, but it won't run or drive. Crap. Its Saturday night at 7:30 pm and I am three hours from home. This is my punishment for not sticking to my usual route.
The good news is that my parents were following in their full-sized van. My family jumped in and I hooked up the trailer and we kept driving. AAA towed the car to a local shop who diagnosed the obvious: dead alternator. I'll be out a few hundred bucks and will have a 6-hour round-trip drive to retrieve it as punishment from the road-trip gods.
