Day 3 should have been easy. The challenge was “Don’t Be an Idiot.” We drove the Stanzawagon anyway, so I guess we failed the challenge.
We learned that in a tall car with questionable handling to begin with, it is even less fun to drive twisty roads when the power steering doesn’t work. I continue to rue my loss of the bolt at home that would make this not a problem. (Seriously. No power steering because I lost one stupid, special bolt. Oops.)
Right after we made it through Gatlinburg’s constant traffic jam, there was trouble. Turns out, despite that no idiot light came on to warn us, the alternator hadn’t been charging for quite a while. We found a spot to pull off, and I tightened the alternator/water pump belt, which has been making a nice burned rubber smell. (Assumption: belt started slipping, heated up, melted a bit, stretched, slipped more, etc. Never made a noise, though.)
At this point we needed a jump start, so I fished for one by standing next to the car while dangling our jumper cables into the road. Snagged a big Dodge Ram within 30 seconds! Jump start succeeded, and the multimeter said we were charging the battery again.
This lasted at least two or three miles. We pulled over again, and this time I replaced the belt with the spare that came with the car. The team in the Escort ZX3 helped with the jump start this time (thanks, guys!) and although the belt started shrieking later (only when accelerating from a stop), it worked fine.
In a theme to be carried forward on Day 4, it started raining right as the repair was being finished up, and it was raining hard not one mile later.
