Idaho had it's Special Olympics meet this past weekend. It was at McCall, which is 1,000 hours north of Boise (at least it seemed that far). Victoria went with some of the other athletes and coaches Friday morning and Susan and I followed that afternoon. So here's the saga.
We decided to rent a car to travel in since Amanda was staying home and needed to go to Rexburg in the car. The van is not as reliable as it once was, so we arranged for Enterprise to get us a car (not to pick us up, though). I set it up a week or so back and set up for a 3:00 pick up time (don't ask me why; at the time it seemed like a good idea). We decided to move it up, since Susan had taken a half day off work (I beat her with a full day off work for me), so I called and was told no problem. They told us we could park the van in the overflow lot. It was going to be $27.99 a day. skip some boring crap We went down Friday about 1:00, all packed in the van and ready to get the car. Got there. Signed papers and all. Charged the debit card. All good to go. skipping some irrelevent or boring stuff Hyundai Sonata. Since when is a Hyundai a mid-size car? Go to load the trunk, a big spare tire is taking up half the trunk. In the wheel well where it goes (under the crudwood floor of the trunk) is a space with a wheel rim in it. Ask the maintenance guy and he says that the last renter destroyed a tire and rim then destroyed the spare tire. "But," he told us, "It's better to have a full-size spare." I was thinking a full-size trunk was nicer, since I didn't plan to use the spare. Found the "overflow lot"... park on the side of the road. Not happy. Hoped van would be safe. Realized we'd been charged $89.42 for rental car. Went back to see wuddup wid dat. They charged me two hours at 14.99 for getting it early. Asked, "What if it's back before 1:00 on Sunday?" They said no one's there to check it in so they wouldn't know, but I could call the number on the slip and leave a message and they'd come check and return the two hours charges. Not happy, but time was passing and we were getting later.
Went to skip ate at gas station, etc. Cascade, which is 30 miles south of McCall and where we were to stay and where opening ceremonies were. When we got to the school, we were given a red and grey scarf (Go Dons!!!!). Boring ceremonies. They had a "slide show" of pictures. Two pictures. Someone talks. 2 pictures. Someone talks. repeat ad infinitum. or is that ad nauseum?
Went to the hotel where the athletes were staying. Dang, it was nice! Very pretty, fancy, etc. Then went to ours. Susan made me search for the Bates kid before she'd go in. I figured it was nice enough for what we needed (a place to sleep and poop), but Susan wasn't impressed much. No shampoo, either. Subway for dinner (and we barely got in the door before it closed at 9:00 p.m.). Susan lost her anniversary ring. Again.
It snowed that night. Went out early to get shampoo. Gas station only thing open, so $3.00 for Suave. Hit the icy roads and went to McCall. Took over an hour to go 30 miles. Ate breakfast at Maverik (and burped Maverik for the rest of the day). Victoria ran in 3 races. 4th and 3rd place. We built a snowman at the end of the track and I used it to "tripod" the camcorder. Victoria had a fun day, but got grumbly a few times. Oh, great... another teen-ager coming up. After she finished her last race, we left. Went back to her hotel. Took 30 minutes to go 30 miles. Got Victoria's stuff. Found Susan's ring in Victoria's suitcase. Headed to Boise for dinner. Used a gift card and ate at Texas Roadkill. Chicken fried steak (or whatever meat it really was).
Then off to Aunt Sheila's. I should point out that this was the first trip with our GPS and it worked really well! Got us turn-by-turn to everywhere we needed to go. Until Aunt Sheila's. Dropped us about 2 miles away, but a phone call and a bit of driving later, we arrived. Had a really nice visit and stayed over night in Jerome at Susan's mom's sister's place. Woke the next day, had waffles, and hit the road. Parked the car in the Enterprise lot at 10:50. Called the number, no voice mail, they lied. Scum! Took pictures of the undamaged (by us) car in case they blamed something on us and left. Got home about noon.
Sent a nastygram e-mail to Enterprise. Got a phone call today from Jace with Enterprise in Utah. He wanted to know what was up and I told him the story. He wasn't happy about the extra two hours (he says that is never charged) (the girls were new). He asked what I wanted and I told him I didn't want to pay the two hours. He said that was fine. He was also not happy about the loss of trunk space (which I agreed with, but felt it was better than no spare). At the end of it all, he said he'd only charge us $26.00. I told him that wasn't fair to them and he said Enterprise didn't need the $30.00. He gave me his cell phone number and said to call him directly when I need to rent again and he'd give me a great deal. So, anyway, there's a long story to suffer through. And we got our rental car for $13.00 a day unlimited miles. Sweet!
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