Dash lights and instruments working intermediately on starting

Hello Folks - Thanks in advance for any assistance you might be able to offer.

I have the car listed above, bought it in 1998 and has been an excellent vehicle.

Recently on a trip from Colorado to Iowa I experienced a problem I've never had before. Hoping someone out there has maybe had something similar and can offer advice.

I turned the car off to refuel. When I restarted it all the usual lights, gauges, tack, etc, were not active, the only thing lit up was the warning "anti lock". The radio, A/C, tachometer, temperature gauge, etc, were completely dead.

I assumed there was a bad fuse, checked the fuses in the dash panel by steering wheel and all good. Removed the rear seat and continued to check both fuse banks. Again could not find any bad fuses but there were a few which are not check-able.

The car would start and go into gear so I thought it best to try and drive to the next exit (this was on I70 at the Kansas City Turnpike).

After maybe a 1/2 mile all the electronics started working as normal again.

About every third time the car is started this problem happens. Normally would go away after a short distance but yesterday it happened again (of course on way to DIA to drop someone off). This time in addition to the "anti-lock brakes" light coming on the "service engine soon" light also was lit.

Not only did the dash instruments/lights not come back on the transmission seemed to be stuck in second gear.

Hoping someone has experienced this issue and might have some guidance or suggestions on what the problem could be.

Again, thanks in advance for any assistance!