Just when everything was going well...

...my car makes things "interesting" once again.

Alan and I had just got off the train at Fraserdale and after packing up all our gear, we each jumped in our own cars and headed south towards Smooth Rock Falls. We made sure to drive together in case one of our cars had issues. The road back to Smooth Rock Falls is long and devoid of any human habitation or cell phone service.

30 minutes later, the battery light came on. Not good. Then shortly after, I lost all power and my car came to a stop. Alan noticed that I wasn't behind him anymore and turned around to see my on the shoulder of the road with my 4-ways on.

Alan knows more about cars than I do and he thought it was probably the alternator which had gone. The alternator transfers mechanical energy from the engine to electrical energy to power the battery. With my car, the battery not only powers things like lights, heating/AC, radio, etc but also contributes to aspects of the engine, so with the alternator dead the battery died and my car subsequently died! We decided to leave my car on the shoulder (it was a very lightly traveled road, especially at night) and we ended up getting a motel in Smooth Rock Falls. Fortunately Alan has CAA and so he arranged a tow truck to pick me up in the morning, take me back to car, and have it towed all the way to Cochrane.

Currently I am sitting in a motel in Cochrane, waiting for the new alternator to arrive in the morning, and by noon I should be on my way. Unfortunately this is another setback to the year as I have to spend even more money on my car that I wasn't counting on, but such is life! I suppose its good that it is an easy repair and not something more major.

At any rate, I hope to continue birding hard for the rest of the year, but all these added costs are adding up so I am looking for work currently. If anyone knows of any environmental/consulting work, please let me know!

So yeah, that is the big update for today. Kind of a crappy situation, but it could have been much worse. Thanks a lot Alan for arranging everything with CAA and re-arranging your schedule to help me out - it is much appreciated!

I'll try to get another Netitishi update up soon.