well, I will have the car to play with tomorrow
ill turn the lights on, and as soon as the dash light cut out ill kill them
then see what happens after 5 minutes or so
if
@Tooljunkie is correct that its a connection heating up and cutting out this should allow it to cool down and come back on, right?
then ill start pulling fuses and connectors under the hood and slathering them with dielectric grease (and look for signs of bad connections, baked terminals or corrosion)
if that doesn't do it, ill see if I can trade her in for a hello kitty charger...do they come in AWD?