Are you SERIOUS!!!???

Yes.  I am.  After my jaunty little post about leaving Cheyenne with the picture of the amazing rainbow that had just appeared as though to confer a blessing on my journey, Goose wouldn't start.  I reread my post about handling things like a professional and did NOT cry.

There was a bit of a circus in trying to figure out the problem, which  looked like it was the battery, but then looked like it might be the alternator.  I'll update when I can sit down at the computer, but the short of it is I got towed from one truck stop to another, and Goose is now in the very capable hands of two very experienced men who work on big rigs and apparently every other kind of vehicle.  They say it's the battery, so that's better news than a bad alternator.  Which is shiny new, by the way.  But so was the radiator.

 

So, I'm like, still in Cheyenne.  I'm hoping to say goodbye to 'ol paint for real shortly.  Not that I haven't developed an abiding affection for him by now.  I updated most of yesterday's hastily composed posts (which was why there were so many egregious typos), so check them again for a more complete description of the day.

 

Update:  the alternator is toast too.  In my on-going education in automotive technology, most of it learned from dealing with classic Detroit steel, I've learned a bad battery can kill an alternator.  Apparently that's what happened here.

 

Update: 

 

The guy who came to my rescue when Goose wouldn't start was Aaron.  That glowing thing shining out of his middle is his soul.  It's a good one.

 

 

A kind of blurry shot of Aaron putting Goose up on the flatbed at the Cheyenne Pilot.

 

 

Aaron came out from Big Al's to render aid.  We jumped through a lot of hoops with a fancy electronic gizmo that was supposed to tell you if your battery was dead and why.  It involved connecting it to the battery and performing a series of actions like starting the engine, turning on the lights, turning them off, reving up the engine, standing on your head, reciting the alphabet . . .you get the idea.  The only useful information it yielded was that the battery wasn't taking a charge, but since the charging gauge on the dash was showing nothing that was fairly obvious. 

 

Since the engine was still running, we thought it was just the battery that needed replacing, and Aaron offered to take me to Walmart or Costco to get another one and then he'd put it in for me.  But as we were discussing these options, the engine began make a series of hitching, galloping surges, and then it died.

 

We looked at each other.  "Guess the alterantor's bad," I said.  It was a new alternator.  Just like the radiator. 

 

Aaron towed me to the AutoZone, where he hoped I could get both battery and alternator tested, which would at least tell me what was going on, but the folks there didn't want to do it.  It was close to 9:00pm, and there was nothing to be done until morning.  I was in favor of going back to the Midas, but Aaron thought there might be a 24 hour mechanic at Little America, and I didn't want to spend the night sleeping in the truck on the street or leave the truck there unattended, so Aaron loaded the Goose back up and took me to Little America.

 

He told me about XM radio and suggested I might like that if I did a lot of travelling.  He asked if I liked the band Kiss, told me they had played in Cheyenne, along with ZZ Top.  I told him I was not a KISS fan but I was down with ZZ Top.  He said that for a long time there had been nothing but country and western acts in Cheyenne, but then somebody finally figured out not everybody likes only C&W even in Cheyenne, and when KISS was booked the place was mobbed with concert goers desperate for something new.  We had some good conversation.

 

At Little America there was no 24-hour mechanic on duty, but Aaron set Goose down in a quiet spot up by the resort, gave me his card, and told me he might call me to check and see if I was ok in a couple of days.  He let me take his picture and post it here, and gave me his email.  Before he left he told me I should check out the bathroom's in the Little America hotel.  "Man, those are some fancy bathrooms!" he said.