Alternations...

I'm no stranger to car troubles. My first two cars were totaled in accidents (not my fault, I wasn't even in them at the time), and my third car overheated and caught fire a couple of times. I'm now on my fourth car that I have lovingly named Ripley. Ripley is a 2000 Infiniti I-30. It was my dad's and he gave it to me over the summer because I needed a car to go back to college and he's going blind.
Everything with Ripley was going perfectly fine until..... BAM! Well really it was a slow and gradual fizzling out, but because of my lack of extensive knowledge about cars I didn't expect it to die on me.
Here's the story...

Earlier in the day I went to get new glasses with my good friend Bo. As we were driving around I thought I heard a strange whirring sound as I accelerated. I usually have music blasting so I decided to ask him if he thought that sounded normal and I just hadn't noticed it before. He didn't think it sounded out of the ordinary so we went about our day, got glasses and I prepared to leave for Bartlesville (where I'm from) with my friend Greg. We had just gotten on the road and had been on the turnpike for maybe 10 minutes or so when my air bag and seatbelt lights started blinking non-stop.
We started to pull over when the entire dash panel started flickering and we barely made it to the shoulder when the entire car just died. We couldn't get it to start back up after that, and I figured it wasn't the battery because driving the car alone would charge the battery. That left on option; the alternator.
So Bo, the car wasn't fine, but then I already knew you had minimal knowledge of cars. Sorry, for expecting you to know stuff like that.
Anyway. I called my dad (Bartlesville) and my mom (Midwest City) and they both told us to call AAA and see about getting it off the turnpike so we could be rescued.
We walked down the road until we could tell what the nearest mile marker was to tell AAA and called them to tow us off the side of the road.
Luckily we were very close to the Wellston exit and towing us to the nearest rest stop was within my 5 mile free tow limit. Even more luckily the time estimate was about an hour and the tow truck arrived in less than 15 minutes. He hooked up the car and dropped us off at Beu's Route 66 Travel Center where we could grab some food, drinks, let the dog potty, and because they were so nice they even allowed all 3 of us to wait for our parents inside.
At this point Greg's father was headed towards us to finish taking us home for the weekend while my mom and step dad had picked up my step Granddad's truck and trailer to haul my car back to the city.
They arrived a little more than an hour later and then we were back on the road. After a few hours we were safe and sound at Greg's parents farm and very thankful for all the help and kindness we received.


Now my mom and step dad have poor Ripley and they are working to fix him back up for me. Hopefully I'll be mobile again soon. Until then I'll just break out my long board and keep adventuring that way.

-Allie