Weekend to Remember contd…

So after a lot of you asked me about the follow-up post for my “Weekend to Remember” post, I had to get off my lazy ass and finish what I started. So here it goes…

Me and S started off from OC and were about an hour and a half out on I-5, when suddenly the lights inside the car went out, the radio shut off and the car started to sputter. We pulled over on the shoulder on the left side and popped the hood to see if we could diagnose the problem and possibly fix it. But soon it became apparent that the problem was not a fix-it-and-go.

8:10pm 

We decide to do the next logical thing – call for roadside assistance. S could not get any signal on his phone, so we called from my phone.  This is where our problem started progressing from bad to worse.

For the first time in all these years of travelling, I forgot to carry my phone charger and my phone had probably 2/3rd of battery life left. We had another problem…we didn’t know our exact location on the freeway and could only give some approximate landmarks. We were told that the tow-truck was on it’s way.

8:30pm

Half an hour since we broke down and we were happy that help was on it’s way. We kept looking down the freeway for a tow-truck. Then I looked down at my watch…

9:05pm

No tow-truck yet…there was something definitely wrong. And just then the dreadful call came in – the truck driver had failed to find us and had returned to his base. I am pretty sure that the driver didn’t even bother to go search for us and gave up within a mile or two from the last landmark we had mentioned.

It had started to get a little cold and the noise of the cars whizzing past us and the worsening light wasn’t helping us at all.

9:40pm

We decide to call 911. Inspite of explaining to the emergency operator that I was running low on phone battery, the lady continued to go through her questionnaire and finally uttered the words which sounded like heaven – “The dispatch is on it’s way and should be there in 15-20min”…but what she followed that up with was ridiculous – “If no one arrives for 30min, please don’t keep waiting and call back right away”. Are you for real?? What part of “my phone is about to die any minute” didn’t you understand?

Through another stroke of brilliance, we decided to call up our friends in OC and gave them our approximate location and asked them to co-ordinate with the roadside assistance just in case my phone ran out of juice.

10:15pm

No cop car in sight. It’s the first time in my life that I have so eagerly awaited to see the flashing lights of a cop car pulling up behind our car. Our friends in OC tell us that roadside assistance has been instructed to keep travelling down the freeway till they locate us. YAY!!

I make another call to 911. They tell me that they have my previous call on record and that the dispatch is already on it’s way. I am not sure which way it was headed, it definitely wasn’t our way! By now we both are bored and frustrated. I start waving to all passing cars hoping that some driver would be a good samaritan and call 911 to inform them of our predicament (or inform that there are two lunatics waving on the side of the freeway!). But little had we expected that some driver would provide us with a moment of humor. Suddenly we see a BMW pull over to the side and start flashing it’s blinkers. We ran towards the car hoping to get some kind of assistance. What we find instead is a driver who is piss drunk and could barely understand what we were trying to tell him. We moved aside and set him off on his way with a “Thanks, but no thanks”!

11:10pm

A little over 3 hours since we pulled over, we see a tow-truck heading our way. We let out a scream of joy and run towards our angel in disguise (in mechanic’s overalls to be precise!). He suggests that we tow the car to a town about 10-12 miles away where they had a service station as well as hotels nearby to stay overnight. At that point, we were hungry, thirsty and completely drained of all energy and that suggestion was the best we could get. We squeeze into the cabin of the truck and were on our way.

11:45pm

The truck driver dropped off the car in front of a service station and we paid him and he was on his way. We walked to the gas station to ask the clerk for the opening time of the service station. The words that followed were like lightning crashing on our heads. The clerk said, “That service station has been out of business for at least 3 months”. I spotted the tow-truck waiting at the stoplight and I made a mad dash out to get hold of him. Just as I reached, the light turned green and the truck disappeared in front of my eyes. Our angel had just discarded his disguise and had become the devil!

Walked back to the gas station and met a guy having coffee. He happened to be a mechanic.

Was this going to be our stroke of luck? By this time I had stopped expecting for anything good to come out, so I just asked him to take a look at the car. He came over, told us it seemed like an alternator issue. He gave us a jump start using his truck, but it wasn’t of much help as the battery would not charge and he didn’t have his tools with him. We thanked him for helping nevertheless.

00:15am (next day)

Me and S walked towards a hotel and checked in. Dumped our bags in the room and we strolled out to get something to eat.

00:40am 

Seemed like our luck was changing as Denny’s actually served our order within 10min!!

1:30am 

Back in the room, I don’t even remember when I crashed on the bed and fell asleep…

7:00am

…S is shaking my hand to wake me up. Takes me a few moments to realize where I was and the entire ordeal of the previous night started to play again in my head. Took a quick shower, had a hot coffee and S called up a nearby garage who told us that they could fix the problem and have us on our way.

8:30am

We get the car towed to the garage and they tell us that they will need to order in an alternator to replace the old one. They said we should be on our way by noon. We head out to a nearby Starbuck’s while we leave the car behind for the garage to work on it. Sitting in that chair with a cappuccino in hand was probably the most relaxing moment I have had in years.

11:30am

The car is ready and raring to go. S pays the garage guys and we are on our way…