"The Beetle is Back" II - Hurry Up and Wait

It's now 1:30pm on the 25th and the three of us are sitting on the side of I-77, literally 50 yards from the toll booth. The good news is that I have a cell signal - if this had happened 5 miles in either direction that might not have been the case.

After opening the hood and scratching my head I looked in my glove box and found the number for the VW roadside assistance and called them. The nice woman on the phone informed me that my roadside assistance coverage had expired just a few months ago. However, she could get me to the closest VW dealership.

OK, we're getting somewhere now. So, let's get me to Beckley...right? No - the closest place that can work on the car is Charleston WV - we just passed Charleston - it's 45 minutes BEHIND us. She tells me that it will cost me $191 to get it towed to the VW dealership in South Charleston WV. I ask - isn't there something closer to NC? She starts listing off other places that are farther away - IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. Of course, it also costs more to get them there. I finally just tell her to send the truck and get us to South Charleston -they take Visa or MC...

How long will it be? About an hour and a half...

So, me and the boys sit tight on the side of the road and wait.

About 30 minutes later I get an automated message telling me that the truck will be there in about an hour. 30 minutes after that someone calls me and tells me he's on his way - just confirming where I am - pretty hard to miss us.

So, somewhere just short of 3pm the tow truck shows up. HE CAME FROM BECKLEY WV. When I figured this out I asked him if there wasn't some place he could take this in Beckley and he tells me that there isn't any place in Beckley that can work on a VW. Wow - the 8th largest city in WV, so named "The City of Champions", over 77,000 in population doesn't have any VWs. Go figure...

So, it's about 3pm and we are in a tow truck based in Beckley, traveling AWAY from home about 45 minutes north to South Charleston which, by the way, is WEST of Charleston. I asked the driver if we passed the airport on the way and he said that the airport was south of Charleson and that we wouldn't pass it to get to SOUTH CHARLESTON because it's on the other side of town. The driver is "pretty sure" he knows where this place is and asks me if I do. Wow, I'm impressed.

I already know that we going to end up somewhere that no one will be to greet us because it's Sunday and no one is home at the dealership on Sunday (or Saturday for that matter, but more on that later). I also know that even though this is 2nd the biggest "metropolitan area" we pass during our trips to and from Michigan (the biggest being Toledo) we can't usually even find a place to eat here except Hardees (they are everywhere).

We get to the dealership area about 4pm...

"The Beetle is Back" Part I

I would like to share a story with you - this story is true - some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent (some have not been changed to complain about the not-so-innocent).

It all started when my two sons and I went to Michigan for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. We took my beetle because we just thought it would be fun - even though we used every ounce of space to pack 3 guys and all their stuff (including TWO guitars and a skateboard). Everything went smoothly until...

We were heading back on Sunday morning the 25th and making great time. It takes anywhere from 9 1/2 hours to 11 hours to make this trip depending on weather, traffic, pit stops and all sorts of stuff. We were on schedule to make it home in record time. Everything was going great and then within the span of about 10 minutes it went from great, to not-so-great, to bad, to...

We were on I-77 heading south smack in the middle of West Virginia. This part of I-77 through WV is a toll road and we were getting close to the 2nd of 3. When we started to hear a weird noise coming from the car. It was clicking very fast.

We pulled over immediately and checked the engine - it wasn't hot it was just making this noise. So we got back in and drove to the next exit which was a rest stop. Me - being a complete dunce when it comes to cars - opened the hood and listened. The rest area was full of people heading home from the holiday and another guy walked up and told me it sounded like we had bad gas (no pun intended). So our plan was to get to the next town and get this taken care of. The next "major" town was Beckley and only about 20 miles away.

We got within about 15 miles (just past Pax, WV). When I slowed down to pay the 2nd toll the car just stalled and would not start back up. It sounded like it was trying to turn over but it wasn't moving. My oldest son and I quickly got out and pushed the car to the shoulder of the toll plaza...

Our day had just changed dramatically and the course of events from here were completely different than I could have (or would have) imagined. It was 1:30pm on the 25th and our adventure was just beginning. We were about to meet new people, experience adventure, frustration, joy, deceit and many other things...