Entity Mark Tuovinen spoke thus:

> Jeff,
>
> I too heard the Car Talk puzzler, but did not respond. I have BTDT on this
> one. Heading home from Denali National Park late one night my alternator died
> in my Jeep, we ran on the battery as long as we could, even to the point of
> using a flashlight in place of headlights. I now know what the earliest car
> head lights were like. Thankfully there is little traffic on Alaskan highways
> 200 miles from Anchorage on dark September nights. Eventually the battery died
> and we coasted into a pull off. We flagged a passing motorhome down, only to
> find that he too was having electrical problems, his tail lights did not work,
> nor would his second battery charge. We spent the next five hours following
> him back to Anchorage, we were his tail lights, and he, our head lights. We
> ran with the least amount of electrical usage possible, and swapped batteries
> when the one in the Jeep would run low. It took us us over 6 1/2 hours to
> travel 200 miles, including multiple battery swaps, one gas stop, a
> nd helping a stranded motorist change a flat tire.
>
I heard the show but no mention of a vanwagon. They explained that the
batteries were swapped "in a matter of seconds", which pretty much excludes
a Vanagon. Exactly why the OP assumed it was a Vanagon owner could be a
puzzler for a future show, since there is no evidence that Vanagon owners
are geniuses.

-- Gnarlie

> Mark in AK - regular Car Talk listener
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
> Date: Saturday, March 20, 2004 11:25 am
> Subject: Listee is Car Talk genius?
>
>> Just listening to Car Talk on public radio and hear the winner of
>> this week's
>> puzzler is Blaine Bachman of Albaquerque, NM. There could be a
>> fair amount of
>> Blaine Bachman's in Albaquerque, but my guess is only one smart
>> enough to
>> solve the puzzler would be a Vanangon owner and list member. This
>> making up for
>> the fact that the Vanagon is one of the worst vehicles on the road
>> according to
>> Car Talk.
>>
>> Anyway, congrats Blaine. Way to represent.
>>
>> For those with interested in the Car Talk puzzler this week; it
>> was about a
>> party of four trying to get two cars back home while one had a bad
>> alternatorresulting in a dead battery. The solution was to trade
>> the batteries from one
>> vehicle to the next every X amount of time--thereby charging the,
>> at that
>> point, almost dead battery in the car with the good alternator
>> while the
>> now-charged battery kept the car with the bad alternator on the
>> road for that time.
>> Then, swap again.
>>
>> Best
>> Jeff
>> 83.5 Westy
>> LA,CA
>>