"The Beetle is Back" V - Day Two - The Voyage Home

I get back in the van and I realize that everyone in the van is a bit restless...

I call my travel agent and a few minutes later she has me booked at Hertz, downtown in the lobby of a hotel. I ask the driver if he knows where it is and he does. I just multiplied the amount of money that I was spending to get home and I wasn't going to "relax" until I was in a car.

We arrived downtown at the hotel and circled around looking for a Hertz sign and didn't see one. I just asked the driver to stop at the main hotel entrance and I thought I would just check inside. I felt like I was pushing my luck keeping the driver out this long, but I didn't have much choice.

Sure enough, just inside was a Hertz desk and a lady was sitting there. Still not ready to accept that this was going to be easy I slowly approached the desk. She asked..."are you Bryan?". My heart skipped a beat - our travel agent had called personally and set things up. I was all set. When I confirmed with her that I had a car, I stepped outside and told the boys to unload the van.

10 minutes later we were loaded up in the car, the van was gone and the first thing we did before pulling out on to the street was to pray...

15 minutes later we stopped to have lunch and we all took a deep breath - we were still 3 hours from home, but we were on our way. Oddly enough, we stopped at the same place we stopped on the way up to eat (Hardees). It seems that if you want to eat north of Beckley and south of Parkersburg you only have a few choices. The car has XM Satellite, so Shawn and I listened to "The System" (a techno station) the whole way home and talked the whole way.

We were home by 4PM, the beetle was still in WV, but at least WE were home. The beetle, unfortunately, still had a long road home...

"The Beetle is Back" IV - Day Two - Enterprise Surprise

Sunday night was actually OK, if not just a bit surreal. We had spent the last 5 hours getting from the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere and now we are in a comfortable room - relaxing. It turned out to be a decent evening.

I realized that I couldn't get anymore done on the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, so I relented and waited until Monday morning...

I got up fairly early and got started. My plan was to arrange for a way to get us home so that my youngest could be back at school the next day and that my oldest could be back to work. It occurred to me that I might get some good advice from the travel agent that works out of our office. I have talked to her a lot over the last few years traveling for my company and she is awesome - she'll have some ideas.

I was right - within about 15 minutes she had a car reserved for me just a few blocks away from the dealership at Enterprise - for a good price too. We had breakfast, showered and dressed and relaxed some more. I wanted to see what the dealership could tell me by noon. If they could fix it before say 3PM, then we'd just stay and drive the car back home. If not, they we're outta there.

By about 11AM it was obvious we would not be driving the car back home that day since they had not even looked at it! So, the boys and I pack up and have the hotel van drive us to the Enterprise car place to get the car so we can go home. Sounds simple, huh?

It's cold and rainy and we get to Enterprise and I have the boys wait in the hotel van with our stuff while I go get the car. There's a line... I wait about 20 minutes and I finally get to talk to someone. I give him my reservation number and everything looks good, I go to pay and he asks me the question that still haunts me.

"Is the a debit card?"

I say, "no, it's a Visa card". He wants to know if I have another card, I tell him that I don't and I ask what the problem is. You see, he hasn't even swiped the card yet! Well, "we don't take debit cards" - I say, "this is not a debit card, it's a Visa card". "Yes, but it's tied to your checking account right?", I say that it's none of his business how my bank and I have arranged to fund this card, you will process it through Visa just like any other Visa card. "But it says 'Check Card' on the front." - yes, it does but what does that have to do with anything. When you authorize the amount you need to rent me this car it will be accepted - and if not then you can tell me that it's not.

He went on to tell me that he couldn't take the card and that if he did he could lose his job. He also tells me that he can't take a card over the phone either or cash. Wow - what a place. I now understand why my company uses Hertz (by the way, THEY use my card all the time).

So, now I have a reservation that I can't pay for even though I have plenty of money for it. I hotel van waiting outside in the rain with my two boys and all of our stuff and I have to get home today. My wife is furious, I'm rattled...

The story continues...

"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...