After surviving the Heart Attack Grill ( Damn that burger was good! It's gotta be the lard), Craig and I arose Friday morning and set out on our excellent adventure. After breakfast at Jim's Coney Island Diner in Scottsdale, we headed to the auction. For those unfamiliar with Barrett Jackson, it is the most prestigious car auction around and is scheduled in Scottsdale, Az., Palm Beach, Fl., Orange County, Ca., and Las Vegas, Nv. this year. Classic cars, muscle cars, restorations, recreations and one-of-a-kinds (Ghostbuster mobile, Bat cycle and Batmobile) are all on display and auctioned off under a 14 acre tent for a week. I am not much of a car enthusiast, but the cars on display were gorgeous. And walking around with Craig (who is a fountain of vehicular knowledge), my appreciation of these machines was enhanced to the nth degree. The attention to detail and workmanship and the quality of the restorations were amazing and brought back memories of the days when these cars were actually on the roads in my youth... (yes, there were cars in my youth). My favorites are still the old "gangster" cars and the Chevys from the 50's (they were incredible). Craig went for a ride in a Corvette and Shelby Mustang (they zipped around a small track setup for 3 minutes) and we walked the entire venue and checked out all the cars...
Around 5 or so we decided to head out and boarded the luxury buses (they had these to shuttle us back and forth from the non-pass (free) parking lot) and got back to the car before dark... the lot was an empty field and they told us to find a landmark because they wouldn't help us find the car later on. We had no trouble... (we were parked by a cactus) but the car was dead when I turned the key... (of course I thought it was my fault, but I swore I had the lights off). I called AAA and they sent a guy to jump the battery. This guy (I will not reveal his real name), I called him Larry the Cable Guy, set up his battery charger and alternator tester on my engine and told me to fire it up. When I did, the tester cord was snagged and wrapped around my fan! ("That never happened before! Yuck, yuck!"). He yanked it out from around the fan and we tried again and he announced that it was the alternator that was bad and he called for a tow truck and left. Craig had suspicions about this guy and his work (well founded) and he reinspected under the hood and found that when the dude yanked his cord from around my fan he popped the serpentine belt off the pulley and hence the alternator wasn't "alternating". I called "Larry" and told him what happened, but he was already on another call (Oops, sorry, buddy!), so we waited for the tow truck guy. It had started raining again and Craig was struggling to reattach the belt but to no avail...(of course Jim had no tools in his car---he does now). So the flat bed showed up and we were whisked back to Chandler. We spent about an hour and half in the parking lot waiting for the tow truck... luckily neither service cost me anything. Dinner plans were ruined, but I whipped some steak and potatoes and green beans together and we re-watched some of the auction on the Speed Channel. Auto Zone for a new battery was first on the list for Saturday morning...
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