"The Beetle is Back" III - Now What?

It's now about 4PM and the tow truck driver gets us to the dealership service building.

Now, I don't know much about South Charleston, but it doesn't seem like the nicest area of town. The service buiding itself seems nice enough - from the outside - which is all we will be seeing today.

When we pulled off the highway I saw that there was as Marriot and I got on the phone and talked to a nice girl that said she had some rooms. I then asked here if they had a courtesy van that could come and pick us up. She checked and found the guy that drives the van and I told her were we were. We were at the the end of "D Street" at the dealership and I could see their sign from where I was. She said she knew where we were and that she would send the van immediately.

The tow truck driver unloaded the car in front of the service door and waited until I was off the phone. He asked me if he could take us somewhere and I told him that we had someone coming to get us - besides all of our stuff wouldn't fit in the back of his tow truck. He gave me his card and told me to call if I needed anything and left us at the empty service center at the corner of D Street and 10th.

We unpacked the car and gathered our stuff up so we would be ready when the van got there to pick us up - at any time. About 4:30 I realized that something was wrong - it had been at least 1/2 an hour since the nice girl at the Marriot had told me that they would be "right there". Wherever "here" was... Since I was hoping to use my HiltonHonors points for our hotel stay anyway I went ahead and called them and found us a Hampton Inn & Suites down the road. The next thing I knew I was talking with the manager there and she had a van headed our way in 10 minutes.

I called the Marriot...she informed me that the van driver couldn't find us! I told her a) that how could that be since she knew were we were and that I could see the sign from where I was standing and b) nevermind I had already found another hotel.

Meanwhile the clock is ticking. Now, we really have nowhere to be until tomorrow morning, but it's winter and the sun is setting. Everything is actually pretty cool - Josh is having a blast on his skateboard (he'd been in the backseat of the beetle all day and ready to burn some energy). Shawn and I are just hanging out wondering what is taking so long.

Now it's after 5PM and no van. I call the Hampton and she said that he's on his way and should be there any time. OK, so we wait and we watch. We are basically in a fenced in lot on the edge of no where and the sun is still going down. The nice cool air is getting a little colder.

I get a phone call from the guy driving the van - he doesn't have a cell phone and has stopped somewhere to use a phone to find out where we are (hey - atleast he didn't just give up on us like the Marriot). He keeps asking us if we can see "Suzy's" - we can't but we can see a couple other stores and SO CAN HE. At the other end of "D Street" (the way we expect him to come) is a big hill with a little park on the top of it. It looks man made. He asks me if I can see that I say, yeah! Now he knows where we are...so you'd think.

Another 20 minutes go by and nothing. To make a long story short, he spent tha last 45 minutes driving around on the OTHER SIDE of the burm at the end of the street. He got there about 5:30. He was nice enough and apologetic about taking so long to get us.

We got to the hotel quickly and they set us up very nicely (it pays to be a HH Silver Member). They upgraded our room, there was a full breakfast (included) in the morning and each room had a flat screen TV. Also, there were plenty of restaurants in the same parking lot.

We were eating at Panera Bread by 6:30.

God provided - we were safe, warm, and well fed. Things could have certainly been much worse. We enjoyed our evening... Our adventure was in full stride, with plenty left.