DAY ONE: LE DÉPART: STROKE OF GOOD LUCK

so i left lexington, ky on sunday january 4 at noon-thirty for the greater reaches of big sky country out west. hitting memphis in the evening brought storms, and a flashing "your battery is dead" light coming at me from my captains chair... good timing.

i was 6 or so hours in i guess, and making good time. excited for unprecedented living (i've lived in the bible belt for the entirety of my 32 years and was finally leaving the nest of the great southeast) and ready to hit little rock, arkansas and bed for the night. it didn't look like i'd make it that far.

i pulled off in benton, found a wal-mart, and parked under a lamp-post in case this was as far as i'd make it for the nite. i'd gotten as far as i could (comfortably) on what was left of my tank of gas and was ready to see if my battery was in need of a written requiem. i'd learned how to check to the alternator by taking off the positive terminal while the car was still running, and sure enough the alternator was good; that was stroke-of-good-luck number one. stroke-of-good-luck number two came after i turned the car off and upon attempting to restart it, it did just that: it restarted. the crazy dead-battery light went off and i was free to roam.

i overshot my original stop-over, driving around 15 hours that day and made it to fort worth by 4 am and slept next to an NTB awaiting a gravely-overdue oil change early the next morning.

crisis averted. . .