St. Louis and a 1991 Honda Accord

Last weekend, my friends and I made a day trip out of St. Louis, MO. We live only 5 hours away and since pump prices have dropped, splitting gas expenses four ways allowed a cheap escape from Northwest Indiana. But that's where the adventure starts, because we decided to take my car.

I own a 1991 maroon Honda Accord which has racked up a total of 253,000 miles. The car has endured many taxing trips, including last August '07 from the state of Washington to Indiana, earlier in March from Indiana to Key West, FL, and earlier in June from Indiana to Toronto, ON. The thing runs like a charm, so I offered to drive.

However, as we were making the final 5 mile stretch of arriving in St. Louis, we began to notice signs that not everything was okay. The battery light went on and the odometer quit working. We started to lose power. By God's grace we were able to pull into a parking space and begin sight seeing. Much to our surprise, the car performed for us the whole day in St. Louis, getting us around the city.

But on our return trip, 80 miles out of St. Louis, we broke down. It took us nearly 4 hours to finally decide on a plan. You would not believe how we vacillated between options of how we were going to get back once we got towed. We couldn't decide if it would be better to take Amtrak back to Chicago or to rent a car and to drive back, and since it was late at night, we thought about a hotel room too. Actually, we never did fully decide because I eventually just called a nearby towing company and requested a tow to Springfield, IL.

That's when a miracle happened. The guy who towed us also brought the four of us back to his shop and a couple of his buddies offered to fix the car immediately--at 1 AM--. Initially, we were wary that they were going to scam us, but after they quoted a price, it sounded reasonable. The problem was that the alternator had gone out and was hardly generating enough power to even run the headlamps. Two hours later, with a newly installed alternator, the problem was fixed and we were back on the road.

It was a wonderful trip! St. Louis was an ideal city to explore and the breakdown added just the right element of suspense.