I tried the search and my google skills suck. Hopefully you guys can help me out.

2005 neon SE with 153,000 miles. This morning I hopped into the old girl and a couple of minutes after I get on the highway and noticed an RPM drop and a momentary decrease in speed. (With cruise control and without). It was rythmic, happening every 10-15 seconds. I'd get a RPM drop of about 100-200 RPM's and a noticeable drop in speed. But RPM and speed would return to normal after a second. I turn around, head for home and as soon as I get home I see smoke coming out from under the hood. Smells like a burning belt. Since I was on my way to work I jumped into my other car and wasn't able to check it out further.

After work I look everything over and couldn't see anything obviously wrong. I started the car and it tried to turn over, acted like it was stuck then freed itself, and started normally. I let it run for a while, looking at everything, and drove it around with no issues. My commute is 30 miles one way through the Nevada desert so I'd like to figure out what happened before I head off into the desert.

Any ideas on what might have gone wrong? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.