Thursday, October 30, 2008

Remember the Alamo

The last few days have been pretty uneventful...more boogie boarding, more swimming in the pool, more beautiful sights.  Today, however, something happened that I've never had to deal with before...a broken-down rental car.  Shortly after lunch, we went down to Poipu Beach to do some boogie boarding.  After about an hour, we headed back to the minivan to return to our condo.  We threw our boogie boards in the back, got in, but when I turned the key in the ignition, the horn started honking and nothing more.  I tried it a few more times, but it was the same thing.  Unfortunately, I had left my cell phone at our condo.  Thankfully, just down the road was a pay phone, and so I went there to call Alamo Rental Car.  I was told that I just needed to reset the security system by looking the van from the outside with the remote, waiting a few seconds, and then unlocking it with the remote.  I did that...but it was the same thing:  Honking horn and nothing more.  There was a local guy there who was observing our blaring horn fun and he offered to let me use his cell phone.  So I called Alamo again and this time I was told that the whole system had probably frozen up and that they would need to send a tow truck out with a new rental car on it and make the exchange.  The only problem is that it would take 2-3 hours.  Mem found a couple there who were willing to take her back to our condo, where she could get my cell phone and call one of the families in the church who would then pick our daughters up while I waited behind with the van.  Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., after waiting for about 90 minutes, the new rental van showed up.

6 comments:

Zepmom said...

So, we have kind of a horror story about our recent car rental at SEA-TAC, which I may share on Epiphany...and once, coming back from B-Ham in a rental, we got in a fender-bender in Portland and had to shell out big bucks b/c we didn't have any 'special' collision coverage...glad your issue was resolved...

amy said...

Trouble in paradise?! That stinks!

Seriously though, that must have been so frustrating to be ready to get back to the condo and the air conditioned car only to be stranded for that long! So sorry you guys.

P.S.
COME HOME! :)

Kevin Efflandt said...

The worst part was that once we got to the car it started raining. In and of itself, that wasn't such a big deal, but at the same time it was also 85 degrees. So if we rolled the windows down to cool off...the rain would get in. But if we rolled the windows up, we'd get super hot. Thankfully, Mem and the girls were able to get a ride back to the condo so they didn't have to sit in the car for 90 minutes waiting for the replacement vehicle to show up. The way we look at it, though, is that it could have been worse. This could have happened when we were at Polihale, which is an extremely isolated beach away from just about anything (no cell coverage, no gas stations within 10 miles, etc.).

Rachael said...

You mean putting oil in it wouldn't fix it =)

Joe said...

I'm sure between the two of us, with our vast knowledge of all things mechanical, we could have figured out the problem.

Kevin Efflandt said...

Of course that's the first thing that came to mind: If only Joe were here...then we could put our heads together and figure this one out! :)