To-do's that get put onto our list!

We had plans to get up and going early on Monday to go to the Webster Flea Market... but the Jeep had other plans...

... it would not start...

We have had an "issue" with the starter (the starter sometimes continues to try to activate (start the Jeep) even after the engine is running), so we weren't positive whether the issue might be the starter or the battery. It sounded like the starter would try but just not get enough juice. Carl got his jump box to see if it would provide enough charge, but that did not seem to be working. He got his battery load tester out and definitively identified that the battery did not have good charge. Thankfully, the Jeep was parked at the back of Gracie, near the engine batteries, close enough to hook up the jumper cables. That wasn't working either until we started Gracie, and then the Jeep got enough charge to start. We ran it for about 20 minutes, and then turned it off and re-started to make sure that we felt comfortable going to the flea market before going to get a battery. We also took the jumper cables with us to the flea market, just in case.

After the flea market, we decided to go to Advance Auto as we had a gift card with money on it from turning in cores from the replacement of our house batteries back in November 2021. I ordered the battery we needed online as we drove there (got a 5% discount for ordering online)...

Carl went in to get the battery, and the fellow behind the counter brought it out and changed out the battery.

Interestingly, when I started it after the battery was replaced, the Jeep did its "starter continuing to try to start the car after engine is running" malfunction. We have, so far, been successful in just cutting it off and back on, and I did that. This is the first time it has ever malfunctioned when someone else (and who might know something more than we do about cars!) would hear it (it never malfunctions around my brother or at the shop!). The Advance Auto guy said that usually the problem is a starter relay on which the contacts were getting sticky. We did a little internet searching and it sounds as if that might be the case and a replacement relay is not very expensive... so we might just replace the relay. Unfortunately since the problem occurs randomly, I guess we won't know for sure it is fixed... but if it happens again, I guess we'd know that it is *not* fixed!

We also stopped at the Bushnell Post Office to pick up a box containing our mail (since mid-December) that we had requested to be sent to General Delivery by our mail forwarding service.

We wrapped up our day out with a late lunch / early dinner at Beef O'Brady's.

Carl told me (and our waitress) a story about eating at Beef O'Brady's near their townhome in St Charles, Illinois. They have boneless wings and will serve them with one of several different sauces. At that time, he really liked very hot and spicy food and asked for them to be prepared with the "Atomic" hot sauce - their hottest choice. The cook came out of the kitchen and specifically asked him for confirmation that he would want that, indicating that it was VERY HOT. Carl concurred that he did. He ate it, and he enjoyed eating it, but he said that he could pinpoint the location within his digestion tract of those wings throughout whole digestion process. From that point on, he has not enjoyed really hot foods - he still likes things spicy (spicier than I like), but no longer flaming hot.