  We present a new approach to quintessential inflation, in which both dark
energy and inflation are explained by the evolution of a single scalar field.
We start from a simple scalar potential with both oscillatory and exponential
behavior. We employ the conventional reheating mechanism of new inflation, in
which the scalar decays to light fermions with a decay width that is
proportional to the scalar mass. Because our scalar mass is proportional to the
Hubble rate, this gives adequate reheating at early times while shutting off at
late times to preserve quintessence and satisfy nucleosynthesis constraints.
  We discuss a simple model which solves the horizon, flatness, and "why now"
problems. Without any additional tuning of parameters, this model satisfies all
constraints from CMB, large scale structure, and nucleosynthesis. The
predictions for the inflationary spectral indices are n_S = n_T = 1. In this
model we are currently beginning the third cosmic epoch of accelerated
expansion.
