Engine Light with strange behaviour. Works on restarting.

Hi,

I have a Ford Taurus SE - 1998 model.

Yesterday I was stuck in a jam and was driving it at a very slow speed, 5 mph when suddenly the transmission started acting wierd. The rpm went up for a second, then down, seemed the engine stopped giving power. The head light seemed to go off but the car picked up again.

A few minutes later, the engine light came up, transmission again started getting cranky and fuel light also came up. I moved car to one side and stopeed it for a while. Restarted the thing again and it worked fine.

After driving for approx 15 miles this happened again. This time, the steering also lost power and became very hard. Fuel light also came up. Restarting the car helped again.

Just to note, the check engine light came up only for the time the car was acting wierd and was not a continuous light.

All this while the fuel gauge also had started showing wrong amount of gas. I just made a guess that the car is running out of gas. I filled the car up after that, but to my estimate it still must have had 2.5 gallons in the tank so it shouldn't be the gas.

3 miles after this the car acted wierd again and restarting helped. There was no problem for the next 3miles and I was home.

Not sure what the problem is and am planning to take it to the mechanic. Your suggestion would help me look at the right thing and find a trustworthy mechanic.

I am new in Chicago so don't know any mechanics here. Am a computer engineer and understand very little about cars in terms of mechanis, but since I hold an engineering degree, I understand things theoritically. So you can through the technical stuff at me with a little explanation and I think I will be able to grasp.

Thanks a lot in advance.
Vin