Rio Grande Gorge (unexpected) (# 0967)

While not a particularly exciting photo, it does have some particular (and not good) memories.

I had stopped here to see what there was to photograph, decided there wasn’t much, so went back to my car…. and it wouldn’t start. It would make noises like turning over, but not complete. Since I have a comparatively new car (30,000 miles) and all of the lights seemed to be working, I didn’t think it was a dead battery. Since I was quite a distance from any service and had my phone, I called Honda. After some tremendously difficult negotiation in 100F degree heat (how do you give a street address when you’re on the side of the highway), they finally arranged for a flatbed to come pick up the car from the Honda dealer in Santa Fe (3 hours away). When the flatbed driver called, I asked if he could by chance try to jump the car just in case it was the battery, but he said no, it would have to be taken back to Santa Fe – since we wouldn’t get back to Santa Fe till late afternoon, that would mean I’d lose two days. I told him to hold off, I’d check with AAA.

AAA was much more productive, they easily figured out where I was and could have someone out in a hour to try to jump it. By then I also remembered my previous Honda experiences that: 1) batteries lasted roughly 30K miles, and 2) they went out with no warning (no slow starts). So I told AAA to come, they got it started, and I drove only about 40 minutes south to a Walmart who could put in a battery while I waited. So, I only lost half a day, not a couple of days.

Lesson: Ignore Honda and stick with AAA, they know what they’re doing..