The Freed-Hardeman Trip, part 2

Continued from Part 1

We decided that the best thing would be to drive the 13 miles to the nearby Walmart, purchase a battery charger, and then charge the battery all night in our room.

By the time we got to Walmart, however, our battery was drained, and we realized we couldn't make it back to the hotel. We were stuck.

Until the lovely folks at Walmart decided to let us charge our battery from the power plug on the front of their building. All the employees got into it, pushing our car over against the wall. We then hooked up our $30 battery charger conveniently purchased inside, plugged it into our battery, and began to wait.

An hour or so later, it was 1:20am, and I thought that the battery looked charged up enough to get us back to the hotel room. So we unplugged, waved goodbye, and hit the road as quickly and efficiently as we could. Naturally, I kept our lights dimmed to preserve charge.

Everything seemed to be going well, until I was suddenly unable to tell if my headlights were on or not. The window became very foggy, and from what I could see of the battery meter, power was plummeting. We were in the middle of nowhere. Everything was falling apart as I watched, the loud whine was sounding, and I couldn't see the road. Except - a large flashing sign appeared through the fog, an old-fashioned arrow pointing to "Bray's Furniture". We pulled into their parking lot as the car died, narrowly missing a ditch.

We were happy not to be dead directly in the middle of an old country road with no lights. Just being in a parking lot was a good thing. But we were stuck miles from our hotel, our trailer, and the helpful Walmart people. How would we get back to the hotel?

Continued in Part 3