California Dreamin’! Subtitle: What Else Could Possibly Go Wrong?

So there we were at the beautiful rental house on the ocean. The place seemed deserted as ours was the only vehicle we had seen driving in.

The sun was setting. The temperature was dropping and it was beginning to get windy and cold. And we were in short-sleeved tees.

And we (as you may recall from my earlier installment) were locked out.

The keys were inside the house. The rental car keys were also inside the house. And my cell phone was on the kitchen counter.

I looked at Vince and I burst into tears.

Vince looked at me and just shook his head.

We were both tired, hungry and more than ready for a little R&R. And, instead, we were dealing with a situation. Again.

Fortunately, the car was unlocked. So I sat inside and blubbered for a minute. I just needed that moment until I could think logically and figure out what to do.

Vince, on the other hand, was on the move trying to find a way out of our predicament.

He checked the windows. Locked. He walked around to the other side of the house and checked the front door. Locked. He even checked to see if a key was hidden under the rocks in the garden. No luck.

Meanwhile, I sat huddled in the car calculating how much it would cost to replace a broken window. But since most of the windows were floor-to-ceiling, I discarded that idea. I truly didn’t want to have to take out a second mortgage to finance this vacation.

Finally, I came out of the car and suggested we walk back to the guard station and get the guard to help us. Vince suggested I was crazy as it was more than two miles away on a twisty road with no street lights and it was going to be full-on dark by the time we reached the guard house.

IF we reached the guard house. Probably he had visions of my cousin finding our lifeless bodies amongst the growing heads of romaine lettuce on the side of the road.

When I realized that Vince had his cell phone, I asked to use it. And then I realized that (a) he had never communicated with the homeowner and didn’t have her phone number in his cell and (b) I knew no one’s phone number off the top of my head.

Eventually, it occurred to me that I could send the homeowner an email message from Vince if I could find the house rental information on VRBO again. So I sent her an S.O.S.

It also occurred to me that she may well come over with a check in hand and tell us to go find somewhere else to stay as she was sick of dealing with the likes of me.

Nevertheless, I sent the message, not knowing how long it might take her to find her message on the VRBO site.

And then I realized that if I could only log on to my Gmail account on Vince’s phone, I could access her direct phone number.

So I tried logging in to my Gmail account.

Have you ever tried this? I hadn’t as I had never needed to before. I didn’t realize that Google takes security pretty seriously and the only way for me to log in to my account on his phone was if they sent me a code. On. MY. Cell. Phone.

Which was on the kitchen counter inside the house we were locked out of.

OMG.

The frustration from this turn of events had me sobbing.

But, finally, I pulled myself together. I started plotting how we could spend the night inside the tiny little Hyundai Accent. I knew we still had one suitcase on the front porch and I was ecstatic to realize it was filled with clothes – and not our toiletries. Facial cleanser and shampoo were not exactly on my list of high priorities at that particular moment.

And then – wonder of wonders – in the waning light I saw a woman with a big Doberman coming toward me!

While the dog barked ferociously, I implored her for help. At that moment, I didn’t even care if her dog took a chunk out of my leg – I was beyond cognitive thought.

Her dog, by the way, was a lover not a fighter. But he evidently didn’t like the looks of the crazy lady with the tear-streaked face waving a cell phone in the air.

Couldn’t blame him.

Turns out that this woman lives in the community year-round. She was walking her dog on the beach, which is where Vince saw her and started waving his hands at her to get her attention (although he didn’t have a tear-streaked face. Fortunately.). But when she saw him, she turned and hightailed it off the beach.

He didn’t know at the time that it is a “no-no” for people to walk their dogs on the beach as it is protected. Plus, she had her dog off his leash. Another “no-no.” So she wasn’t sure who Vince was and figured she should probably find another place to walk Killer.

Oh and P.S., the dog’s name isn’t really Killer. In my crazed state, I couldn’t remember the dog’s name.

Her name, on the other hand, is Patricia. Since she turned out to be our savior, I remember hers! Probably I should’ve remembered Killer’s name since he didn’t take a chunk out of my leg.

Anyway, Patricia had the name and phone number of the guard, who drove up from the guard house and wondrously produced a key and let us into our rental.

I was never so happy to be inside a house in all my life. And I was incredibly grateful that we didn’t have to sleep inside our little subcompact rental car.

So we had a glass of wine. We had our salads and (now-cold) roasted chicken.

And when my cousin Trish, her son Chris and his girlfriend Sonia finally arrived an hour or so later, we had actually pulled ourselves together and looked relatively calm and relaxed.

Sort of.

Because we still had the issue of Vince’s diabetic medication. We had received alerts from the USPS that the envelope could not be delivered as the address was not valid.

Really?

Every indication of the address of the rental was exactly the same and was the address we had provided to Vince’s brother.

Turns out that at some point, the City and ZIP code changed. I wonder if the homeowner knows this? Probably not – and I’m not going to be the one to tell her. She is probably not speaking to me, anyway.

At any rate, we called the local post office and they assured us that they had the package and it would be delivered. A day late, true. But it was being delivered.

Not so much.

Vince went to the mailbox and was unable to find the envelope. On our next trip out, I went to the mailbox and (shhh…don’t tell anyone), I opened the other mailboxes in the row of mailboxes.

And lo and behold – I found the envelope! Evidently, the mailman has a slight case of dyslexia as he delivered it to “342” instead of “324.”  

Hunh. Dyslexia is probably not a great thing for a mailman to have.

The medication is supposed to be refrigerated and, clearly, for two days while it floated between San Diego and Monterey, it had not been – so Vince was a little trepidatious. But he took a chance and used the medication.

And, no, fortunately, I don’t have any stories to tell you about Emergency Room visits or 9-1-1 calls. Whew! (See? Our vacation was looking up!)

The next morning was simply gorgeous! And, for the next several days we had zero calamities. I may even tell you about some of the highlights.

It wasn’t until the very last day that we had just one more teeny-tiny little "situation." I’ll tell you about it next…

Stay tuned!

Our Summer Vacation in California. Volume I. Subtitle: We Will Never Rent from Alamo Again!

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!