Yesterday we had about a 7 hour drive from just outside Asheville, North Carolina, to Bloomington, Indiana. We left early, as I wanted to run on Bloomington’s rail trail when we got in and then we planned to go out for dinner. Our drive started off with fog in the mountains, which was awesome to look at, but not as fun for driving through. After that though, we had a good drive through North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
Once we hit Indiana, we hit a reroute from GPS, then road detours, a stoppage for roadwork on some back country road that was down to one lane. Still, we were on track for about a 1:30 pm arrival. I think we even hit that, but we ended up arriving at an auto repair shop a couple blocks from the hotel (thank you Google Maps), as our charging indicator light had come on. The car manual seemed to indicate that meant that the battery was not being charged and to definitely not shut the car off. Luckily, we were just about 25 miles outside of Bloomington at this point.
We left the car at the shop. They said they would look at it and let us know. We walked with our bags the two blocks to the hotel and checked in. The good news is we had a lovely afternoon. I went for my run and was super impressed with the rail trail, which runs from the downtown area and then out in both directions. I ran from 2ish to 3ish on a Monday, and it was being well used at that time. Bob walked around the downtown area, which is quite compact and very close to Indiana University (where I was also accepted for graduate school but ended up choosing Texas instead).
The auto shop closed at 6. When we still hadn’t heard at 5:30, I called them. They were still busy but said they would call back. Bob got the call a little after 6, right as we were being seated for what turned out to be a great Indian dinner. They would have to fix the alternator, yada, yada, and it should be done by 4:00 pm tomorrow (now today). We were planning to leave this morning, but we have the time to play with, so Plan B it is. It’s not a cheap fix, but cars are worse than useless if they aren’t working, so we definitely want the fix.
Some photos of Bloomington. We stopped here to stay at The Graduate Hotel, an international chain of hotels that we are fond of. They tend to invoke the flavor of the local area and the local university in particular.
He was known for being a bit intense.
Peckish Travels 