Vince and I recently returned
from an amazing vacation in California.
W-e-l-l. Perhaps “amazing” isn’t
the proper word. Okay, so parts of
our vacation were amazing. And other parts? Um. Not so much.
Earlier in the year my cousin Ryan
and his fiancée Erin had sent us a “save the date” for their wedding in
Monterey and, while I was planning to go, I didn’t think Vince had any vacation
time left. So I figured I’d fly in to Monterey, attend the wedding, and turn
around and head right back home again.
Turns out Vince’s vacation time was
renewed on his anniversary date a few months prior – so he said he’d like to go
as he’s never been to California.
We knew we wanted to visit his
brother in San Diego. And, since San Diego is more than seven hours south of Monterey,
we knew we had to schedule a week for the trip.
I decided to book two one-way
tickets – from Columbus to San Diego and then from San Francisco back to
Columbus. Figured that since San Fran is only an hour and half north of
Monterey, it’d be easier and we wouldn’t have to make that long haul back to
San Diego in order to catch our flight home.
Plus, I figured it would give us
a good overview of the state of California. True, there would be many, MANY
areas that we couldn’t explore, but it was a good start.
As I plotted and planned, I
started to get excited about this vacation. I was looking forward to visiting
his brother and then seeing all my cousins that we haven’t seen in several years.
And, also, my sister was flying in for the wedding and several of us had rented
a home a little north of Monterey right on the ocean.
Unbeknownst to Vince, I decided
to rent a convertible so we could drive up the coast with the wind blowing
through our hair. Vince loves this as he can arrive at our destination with his
thick, curly hair completely intact.
I, on the other hand, end up
looking like a blonde Roseanne-Roseannadanna.
See what I do for love?!
But I invested in some super
strength hair ties and a cute, sparkly pink floral ball cap in an attempt to
control the flyaway mess.
We arrived at the Alamo car
rental desk in San Diego on my birthday. So when the agent asked us if we would
like to upgrade our convertible to a BMW convertible, Vince deferred to me. I grinned.
“Why not?” I said. “It’s my
birthday – and we’re on vacation!”
Ohhh…if only I could take those happy
little words back!
Our white BMW convertible was
nothing but trouble from the start. We should have known when Vince couldn’t
figure out how to get the thing to go. He put the gear in Drive and…nothin’. He didn’t realize he also had to simultaneously
press another button on the gearshift column.
Hey, these rental things don’t
come with instructions. Give us a break!
The other issue was when we drove
out of the garage to the parking lot where his brother was waiting with our suitcases.
We spent the next 10 minutes
playing a little game of Jenga trying to fit the luggage into the trunk. It
didn’t. So half of it had to be stowed in the back seat where, fortunately, it
was heavy enough that it didn’t fly out onto the road spewing flip flops, polo
shirts and undies all over Highway 101.
When we had driven about 20 miles
north of San Diego, I received a call from Vince’s brother alerting me to
another problem. He had gone home, opened the refrigerator and saw Vince’s
diabetic medication staring back at him.
Sigh.
Rather than turn around and head
back, we asked Steven if he’d be willing to overnight the medication to our
rental house. But first, I had to call the owner of the rental house to make
sure it was a valid mailing address and we could, indeed, have something
overnighted to us there.
When she told me yes, I mentally
dusted my hands and thought, All-righty!
Problem solved.
Hmmmphh! If only.
But these problems were oh so
minor compared to what we were about to experience.
Our plan was to drive to Irvine,
CA (about an hour and a half away from San Diego) to tour the Arbonne corporate
office and then head north stopping somewhere around Santa Barbara for an
overnight stay. We thought if we had some extra time, we might stop in a town
or two along the coast and do a little exploring.
Let me tell you what. The only
exploring we did that day was to find auto repair companies. More specifically,
tire repair companies.
Our pretty white BMW convertible
kept telling us we had low tire pressure. And we kept stopping and filling the
tires with air.
Finally, one of the tire
specialists told us that the front tires were quite worn and, in his opinion,
the vehicle should not have been put back on the road until the tires were
replaced.
Gee, thanks for this information,
buddy. It’s ever so helpful.
After several stops to fill the
tires with air and several more phone calls to the Alamo rental car company, we
learned that our options were to (a) drive to one of the few Alamo rental car
agency locations and turn the car in for another one, or (b) bring the car to a
Firestone and have the tires replaced.
Alas, our preference – Option (c)
- was not available: Wait for a friendly Alamo agent to drive a shiny new BMW
convertible with brand, spanking-new tires to our location and exchange the
keys and wave us on our way.
We arrived in Santa Barbara
tired, cranky and frazzled. I had made hotel reservations in between calls to
Alamo and the hotel staff treated us like royalty, which was a welcome relief after
our stressful day. They called ahead for reservations at the swanky restaurant
on the grounds and someone brought over our suitcases while someone else valet-parked
our BMW with the crappy tires.
Thankfully, our dinner was
wonderful. We arrived in time to catch a glimpse of the sunset over the water
out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The restaurant staff did an impeccable job
and the food was delectable.
Plus, the bottle of wine didn’t
hurt.
I awoke Tuesday morning to the
sounds of Vince once again on the phone with Alamo. He learned that if we
returned the BMW convertible to the Santa Barbara Alamo office, our only
options were a subcompact – or a large passenger van.
Neither of those prospects
appealed to us, so he then called Firestone. Before we could make an
appointment to have the tires replaced, the clerk needed the VIN on the rental
car as well as the size of the tires.
Oh sure. Our information from
Alamo consisted of this: “BMW Convertible.”
That’s it. No VIN. No other
information. I didn’t even know what series BMW it was.
So Vince made more calls to the
hotel staff attempting to gather the information.
Once we had the info and made the
appointment, we waved goodbye to the lovely hotel in Santa Barbara and made our
way to Firestone. This is every vacationers dream – right? Spending your
holiday at a tire repair shop?
But while we waited for the front
tires to be replaced, we found a quaint little coffee shop and enjoyed a lovely
breakfast.
And, once we retrieved the
vehicle and were on our way to Monterey, we thought our car issues were behind
us.
Uh, that would be a firm, “no.”
We didn’t get more than 10 miles
away from Santa Barbara when the “low tire pressure” came on again.
Really? What kind of sick, cosmic
joke was this?!
So we stopped at a gas station
and filled the front tires with air. We decided that the Firestone employees in
Santa Barbara were idiots if they couldn’t even fill the tires with the proper
amount of air.
When we drove another 45 minutes
or so and the “low tire pressure” symbol came on yet again, we were furious! We
pulled in to the next town, located a tire place and stopped. The mechanic
nicely took the wheel off the car and inspected it.
This was when we discovered that
the rim was broken!
Not only that – but someone (we
assume someone at Firestone) had MARKED where the rim was broken. But did that
individual replace the rim? Nooo. Did that individual even bother to tell us
that the rim was broken? Nooo.
By this point, we were so sick of
this BMW, we couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. If the only thing Alamo had
was a cargo van, we would have taken it!
But instead, they had a lovely little
subcompact Hyundai Accent for us. No luxury. No convertible. Not even a
mid-size vehicle.
We were told that our bill would
be adjusted when we turned in the vehicle in San Francisco.
And they sent us on our way.
Mind you, we were supposed to
meet my cousin at the rental house. I was the only one with the key. She was
nearly there. And we were still three hours away!
So again I called the owner of
the rental house to see if there was a way for the guard at the gate to open
the door for my cousin. I figured the owner was probably going to blacklist me
from ever renting from VRBO again since I was becoming such a pest, but it couldn’t
be helped.
Eventually, my cousin made other
arrangements and told us they would see us later in the evening.
So I had to call the owner back,
thank her for her intervention, but we wouldn’t be needing the extra effort.
Oh, silly me.
Finally, we arrived at the gated
community. We were waved through the gate and we made our two mile winding trek
past fields of lettuce on one side and sand dunes on the other.
When we arrived at the end of the
road, we were the only car in view. We parked our reliable little Hyundai Accent.
Vince opened the front door with the key and we started the arduous process of unloading
the car.
But first, I walked to the
windows in the living room, opened the blinds and saw the incredible view of
the ocean right outside our windows as the sun was beginning its descent.
Ahhh. I thought. Paradise!
It made the rental car problems
from the past two days melt away and I couldn’t wait to fix our simple dinner
(salad with roasted chicken) and crack open one of the bottles of wine we had
purchased on the way into town.
I followed Vince out the front
door to retrieve the last of our bags. And, because I’m in the habit of closing
doors after myself (we do, after all, have a dog who’s a runner), I shut the
door.
…and then had this sinking suspicion.
I turned around and turned the knob.
…and the door wouldn’t open…
But that’s a tale for another day.
Stay tuned!
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