A Tale of Two Rental Cars

That's my 12 year old "behind the wheel" of rental car #1. Hard to believe he'll be driving in 4 years or so.

Any vacation with my family is wonderful, but one of my favorite types of vacations is the "road trip". It's very special being confined in a small space with people you love & actually enjoy spending time with: chatting, pointing out landmarks, laughing and having long conversations about anything and everything. The drive--the journey--is part of the vacation experience.

Along with finding affordable lodgings, planning out a loose itinerary of activities, and researching the local area for good eats, we make room for the extra expense of renting a car. Our logic behind this has always been that it gives us less pressure and worry, as in, no stress on the wear and tear of our own personal vehicle, less stress in the event the car breaks down, etc... We've been renting a car for road trips for years, even before the kids were born.

On our way home from our recent road trip to Las Vegas, we were given validation as to why we have put this practice into place for so many years and will continue to do so for years to come.

As we were in the middle of some unpleasant traffic, the Huz and I could feel something slightly off about the car. It was shaking and making a strange noise. We both thought it was weird, but as my Huz pointed out (and I thought it was pretty logical), the car was fairly brand new (a 2015 model) and although sounding weird, will most likely not break down on us.  As we continued to car crawl through the traffic, the Huz makes a gasping noise and quickly pulls over to the shoulder of the HWY.

"It died," he says.
"Um...okay", I respond. (I'm not cool with this at all).

He starts the vehicle again and we're off...but at this point we're both very uneasy, hoping against hope it's just a fluke and will not happen again. After a few moments, the Huz makes another little gasping sound and pulls over to the side. But this time, he's a little more panicked because he felt the breaks struggle. Okay. Not good at all.  He grabs the phone, calls our rental company and speaks to a representative who tells him that there are no cars available in the closest location to us (Barstow), but there are a few cars available in the next 20 miles or so (Victorville). Can we make it or do we need to call road side assistance?  The car starts up again and if we wait, we'll be waiting for goodness knows how long since we're in the middle of nowhere (not the official name of our location, but it might as well be).  So, feeling like it might be okay, he starts up the car again and goes.  Luckily, at about this time, traffic had died down a bit and we start moving, albeit cautiously, looking out for the exit that we needed to take.  It felt like forever.

When we finally get off the exit, he finds the nearest gas station & calls the Victorville location. The representative on the phone then tells him that they have no cars available (this is not something we were thrilled about but we just wanted to solve the problem, switch cars and move on). The Huz, perpetually cool and calm in a crisis, asks the representative for the phone number of the next nearest location (Hesperia) and calls them. He explains the whole situation to a representative and fortunately, they have a car available to us. (Yippee!) Our car seems to be working okay at this point so we feel hesitantly confident it can get us to that location safely, fingers crossed.  On the way, I kept praying and hoping the car would just hold up.  I have full confidence in the Huz's driving and felt sure we were safe in his hands--if it stalled, he'd ease us on the side of the road as he'd already done.

We finally reach our destination (phew!) and very painlessly switch cars (I was even able to take a much needed restroom break.). Almost without a word, we all automatically transfer our belongings into the new rental car, climb on in, click our seat belts & off we go again!  Throughout this less than harrowing experience, our boys were often silent and sometimes encouraging in the back seat. They never panicked and trusted that their Dad and I would keep them safe. We lucked out with those two.

The car that will eventually get us home is not the car that took us on vacation. ☺

When we returned the second car to the rental company, they were very apologetic and one representative was visibly distressed that we had such an experience. They offered us a free day of rental and gave us an incentive for a free upgrade on the next vehicle we rent (which will come in handy very soon since we are scheduled for another road trip before the end of the summer). We've used this company for years and although we hope to never have a rental car break down on us again (or shut down in the middle of traffic), we're glad that we were able to get through it relatively unscathed.

The point in relaying this story is not to endorse any one rental company over another, but just that renting a car has its definite upside.  We left our original rental car in Hesperia and will never have to think about it again.  If that was our personal vehicle, we would have to worry about towing fees and repairs. Renting a car gives the road tripper less burden.

Our whole vacation was fantastic and memorable and this experience was a mere hiccup that was easily overcome. 

So, go ahead and plan that road trip. Rent a car. Be safe!