My gut feeling is that your car wash caused the initial start failure as a result of something not electrically conducting or going to ground. Then disconnecting and reconnecting the battery once the moisture related issues were gone allowed the system to properly reboot and enabled the engine to turnover.
If your battery is weak it could be the next culprit for the following reason. If the battery voltage to the ignition module is below approx. 4.5volts the module will not pulse.
Just a couple of thoughts.