Now, after I got Homer back in October, the first time he wouldn't start for me was when I was heading out of the PPR parking lot on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I had been helping out with a triathlon since about 4 am, so I was, to say the least, a bit cranky when my "new" car wouldn't start. A few incredibly helpful employees called and truck and jumped Homer back to life.
After Homer got back in action, I drove him straight to the auto shop, demanding (in the most "Anna" way possible) that they check all the fluids and fix whatever went wrong. This led to an education about auto care in Palau. Angie told me that, yes, I was low on fluids...the battery needed more water! Now, my chemistry is definitely rusty, but if I've learned anything from my ipod/rain experience, it's that water and batteries typically don't combine well. But I've learned that that's the first question everyone asks when you have a problem with your battery here. OK. Noted. Keep water in battery.
Now, I thought that with this new kernel of knowledge under my belt, I could head off any future car problems with the motto "Just add water!" Homer had other plans though.
When Jesse was in Palau about a month later, we decided to take a day trip up to Babeldaob to see the capitol and check out some of the sites, possibly the waterfall and monoliths. And so Homer, Jesse, and I optimistically headed out of Koror on what should have been a three hour tour.
As I've mentioned, Babeldaob is the largest of Palau's islands, and most Palauan states are located on this island. Because the commercial center of Palau is in Koror, there are very few businesses or residences up there, and many of the roads aren't paved and are extremely rocky. Thanks to U.S. financial support, Palau recently finished completing the compact road, which is a nice, smooth 85 km long paved road that outlines Babeldaob. Here's my map of Babeldaob. If you look closely, you can see the red lines showing the compact road:
Because all our planned stops were along the compact road, Jesse and I weren't concerned that Homer's undercarriage is about 5 inches off the ground. We were so sure of ourselves that we got overly-adventurous and decided to take the "scenic route" to visit the capital building in Melekeok state. As we took a right off the main road onto a gravel road, I assured Jesse that Ben had once taken this route to the capital too. Apparently my memory isn't as sharp as I'd thought, because Ben reminded me later that, sure, he'd started on that road, but then quickly realized his mistake, and turned back. Probably a detail that would have been useful for me to remember.
Well, as we drove down the gravel road, it quickly narrowed to the point where Homer was as wide as the road, and the gravel turned into rocky clay. We drove along just fine for a few minutes, just taking the increasingly abrupt ups and downs as slowly as possible. But the sound of rock scraping metal wasn't pretty. After about 15 minutes of constant scraping and inching along at about 5 mph, Jesse and I looked at each other. This would have been the most logical time for us to turn back. But for whatever reason, we were both feeling adventurous, and so I justified continuing on by saying "We'll be fine. I've got my phone!" Had I taken the time to look at my phone, I would have realized that it didn't have service, but clearly we'd left behind logic at this point.
And so we inched forward, and the road turned from rocky to just rocks. And our 5 miles per hour turned into stopping every ten feet or so, saying that Homer just wouldn't make it over the rocks, and inching forward, hearing clanking and scraping as the rocks tore poor Homer apart. At one point, we had to drive down a hill and Jesse tried to insist that I get out of the car, so that if Homer's brakes had gone out, at least one of us was safe. Although I was touched by his chivalry, I stayed in the car and we made it down unscathed.
But Homer didn't. By the time we finally made it into a town with paved roads in Melekeok--about an hour an a half after turning off the main road--Jesse announced that the power steering was shot. To avoid getting stranded up on Babeldaob, we decided to head straight back to Koror. And, to add insult to injury, we learned that had we simply stayed on compact road, it would have taken us about 5 minutes to Melekeok! Nice work Anna!
Poor Homer. He's just not cut out for off-roading. After that day, I decided it was time to treat Homer to some TLC with my mechanic, to fix up the power steering and anything else I may have broken. Leading us to Chapter 2: Auto Mechanic Fail!
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