As we got to the Astoria bridge Tom Ryon ended up pulled over in the shelter of some construction equipment. He had lost his alternator about 30 miles back and was trying to make it to Seaside with just the battery. Ended up about 25 miles short.
Matt Brown and I pulled over to see what we could do to help and decided to put Tom's wife Erica in my empty seat while Matt and Michelle got back in their car and we crossed the bridge to Astoria in search of the NAPA store to find a replacement alternator.
Once we found the NAPA store we learned that the nearest alternator was in Portland and the soonest they could get it was the following morning. Alternate plan B was to buy a fresh battery for him and see if he could limp into Seaside on just the new battery.
Erica and Michelle took Matt's car to meet us on the way back over the bridge while Matt and I took the new battery back to Tom's car.
As luck would have it the replacement battery didn't quite fit the mounting point for it so we took my jumper cables and just connected the new battery to the cables from the now dead unit and Tom got going with Matt and I riding drag in case things failed again.
The Karma gods were smiling on us because Tom made it all the way into Seaside on the new battery.
By then the weather had turned again and Seaside was socked in but hey, we were at the hotel so things were good.
View from my room at the hotel.
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