Battery issues

[v10CodeMonkey]

I've got an odd problem that has crept up this week. A few days ago, while driving home (a 10 minute drive) my battery light came on and the gauge was showing about 11.5-12 amps. I drove it on home, which was another 5 minutes, and put the car away. On the drive home the gauge never moved much from the 11.5 to 12 mark. I had the original battery in the car (2008) so it was 6 years old, I just figured it finally decided to die.

I bought a new battery the next day, installed it and fired it up. The gauge slowly climbed back to above 14 amps and idled for a bit then dropped back to around 12 and the battery light came back on. I shut it off, disconnected and reconnected the battery and fired it up again and it slowly (about 5 or so seconds) climbed up to above 14 amps and stayed that way while it idled for few minutes. I didn't have time to take the car out so I shut it and just assumed it was the connections that needed wiggling.

Well, today I figured I test it out on a longer drive. I took it out and drove it around for about 15 minutes and all was good and then bam, freakin battery light popped up again, amps at around 12. I continued driving it for another 10 minutes since I was a good distance from home and the gauge never seemed to waver from the 12 amp mark. Got home, re-wiggled the wires, fired it up, gauge climbed above 14 and all was fine again. I took it out for another 10 minute drive, cranked the AC up and everything and it held at about 15 amps the whole time. Shut it off, startted it a half our later and the the guage never climbed above 12 this time. Shut it off. Clueless as to what was going on, I took the new battery out, returned it and went to Sears and got a different one just so I could rule out the battery as being the issue. Put the Sears Diehard in, fired it up, gauge climbed to above 14 then after about 30 seconds fell to 12 and battery light. Rinsed and repeated one more time, same results.

Any ideas? Does it sound like an alternator? I would assume if it was the alternator it would just keep draining, not drain to 12 and stay there. Any ideas are appreciated.