We went last year (2008) with our new MINI and had a great time, this year, well, the outcome was slightly different.
It started at Home. My MINI was due for it's 36,000 service on Friday. I made an 8am appointment at the dealer in Santa Ana. My thought was that it would be in the shop for a couple of hours and I'd be home by noon or at the latest 1pm. We planned on picking up the kids from school at 1:30pm. At 12:15 the service department called me and said that the MINI was about done, it was just waiting for a car wash, should be ready in 10 minutes. At 12:45 I got paged over the loud speaker. I went to the desk and they asked my if I wanted the car washed. I told them that I had assumed that was already done. Another 10-15 minutes. At 1:15 it was ready, the only problem was that somehow other people, presumably not heading to Vegas for AMVIV decided to cram onto the 55 and 91 freeways.
I made it home by 3:15pm. Since I made regular updates to my family, they knew that I was running late...and they waited until I arrived to start getting things done that they wanted to do before we left...I worked at smiling... by 4ish we were on the road but we'd have to skip this year's Friday night mixer, oh well, I have given up cheese for Lent this year, and they usually serve cheese and crackers.
We did arrive in time to head out to LV Strip with 300 other MINIs. That is one of the best events. It's cool to be a part of something like that. Like snowflakes, no two MINIs are alike. It's fun to see every one's interpretation. There were two MINIs that had a StarWars theme, one had a license plate that read MNI YODA, it was a convertible and had a Yoda (I don't want to call it a doll) stuffed character propped up in the back and the other had a plate that read JEDI NT. Having my iPod Touch with us, we started playing the Empire Strikes Back theme blasting from our stereo... the driver didn't seem as amused as were we.
After the cruise we headed to our hotel. The next morning we debated to go on a run that left at 9am into the desert, or an 11:30am poker run. We decided that we would go on the poker run so we'd have some extra time to view the vendor fair and then we could fit in a little pool time. You could assume that it was this decision that resulted in us being in the middle of the intersection the very moment the driver in a Ford Ranger was paying attention to his little lap dog and didn't notice the red light - that had been red for a full 30 seconds or more. I think it was actually DB and Todd's fault of White Roof Radio. As we were lining up for the run, I was planning on stopping in front of their booth to say "HI" and give them a handshake like last year, but they were doing a live broadcast, and I didn't want to interrupt them...yeah, it's their fault! : ) Actually when you look at the big picture, perhaps this really non-serious accident kept us from being involved in a more serious accident. The glass is half full, right?
After picking up our first card at the "Welcome to Las Vegas Sign" which has become an official tourist stop, complete with a parking lot in the middle of the road, we headed to our next stop with our 3 of Clubs. As we approached the intersection there were two lanes of cars in the left turn lanes awaiting a green light. Seeing the red turn arrow next to my green light actually made me slow down to 40 in a 45 zone. From behind these cars to our left came this goldish 1987 Ford Ranger into the intersection. I slammed on the brakes and turned right. The anti-lock brakes did their job, there was no skidding by the MINI, he hit brakes and did skid. I think that if he hadn't hit his brakes and continued through, he would have missed us, but instead, he was there in a flash as we made a hard right turn and the left front of the MINI got clipped by the Ford. It threw us a little bit toward the curb on the right. The MINI came to rest in the right lane of the street we were crossing. Everyone was alright in our car and none of the 6 airbags were deployed. My youngest, Keegan, didn't even know we were in an accident thanks to an iPod and a DS. It's scary to think about us being in my old Honda that didn't have anti-locks brakes and didn't corner as well, I think that e would have hit a lot harder.
Now the REAL FRUSTRATING part starts: Talking to AAA and our insurance. Since the MINI was blocking traffic my next thought was to call a tow truck. I grabbed my trusty AAA card from my wallet and called the "Out of State" phone number on the back. A woman answered and asked all of the pertinent information, then she announced that she was in California and would transfer me to Nevada AAA. After a 10 minute wait on hold, the Nevada person came on line and asked the same questions, but added one more - "Where do you wanted it towed to?" Ignoring her dangling preposition, I told her that I didn't know...but please send someone quickly. Laura was now on the phone with our insurance company, State Farm. Before they would let us ask to where we could tow the MINI they got all the information from us and the other driver, who was, lucky for us, insured. Another MINI driver saw the accident and came back to help. He did a good job directing traffic because cars that were turning left couldn't really see our MINI until halfway through their turn. He kept them from causing more damage. He also gave me his card and told me he had seen every thing. He was truly disappointed for us, I could tell. In a herd of MINIs were were the zebra that the lion caught and ate today, as the others escaped to freedom.
Now back to Sate Farm, when we finally got to the part where we could ask them where we could tow the MINI, they asked us where we wanted to tow it. After explaining that we didn't know the area, she reluctantly started reading a list of places. After each one, we'd ask if that was close? She never knew. So we called the tow driver over and he would tell us how far he thought they were away, and he reminded us that we got 5 miles of free towing and the rest was $9 per mile. He 4th option was the first one that was within 10 miles, Fairway Chevrolet. What? I thought. Take my MINI to Chevy dealer? Yeah, right. With Laura on the phone with her and telling me what she was saying and me transferring the information to the tow driver, it was taking way too long. We got hit at 12:40, it was now 1:30pm but the car was out of the intersection. As the State Farm rep kept giving us addresses, WE had to figure out if it was close or not - Nice. They'll be hearing from us soon. Finally she spat out an address that our driver said was very close. Fine, we'll take it there!
We needed a second tow truck because there were four of us in the car, and AAA must think that only two people should be in a car at a time...
The girls went in one tow truck and the boys in another. The boys were in the truck with the MINI in tow. We made it to the shop in less than 5 minutes, the girls, however, were 20 minutes behind us. Their tow truck driver got lost.
The place we went was closed on Saturdays - did I mention that this happened on Saturday? But luckily there was a guy who said that we could pull it in the shop. It turned out that he was the owner, and his shop was spotless! A very welcome sign. I had visions of a chain link fence and a bunch of rusting cars piled around with a guy named Cletus sitting behind an oily desk. Kind of like one of my favorite scenes from Doc Hollywood after he wrecks his Porsche and takes it to the local shop and the guy looks in the front compartment for the engine.
This guy runs a nice shop and says that he always battles with insurance companies to put new equipment on cars and not used parts from Arkansas. He promised me that I would not, in any way, be able to tell that my MINI had a fender bender. Even though he happened to just pop in to do a couple of chores, he stayed there with us for 2 hours until we were picked up by Enterprise. The next story...
Whenever you rent a car, they will always try to get you to "upgrade" to a bigger car. I called Enterprise soley because "They pick you up"... in about two hours... he suggested that we get a standard size car, I told him that we have been driving a MINI Cooper and we wanted the smallest available. As it turned out, there was only ONE car available! The place was otherwise empty! Progressive Insurance is picking up the tab for the $55 a day rental, sounds cool and all, but we have to drive a Mitsubishi Galant. What does Galant mean? It's a french word meaning chivalrous. Whatever, it's still boring... oops unless you drive a Galant, I'm sure YOURS is nice, --this one, not so much. It's brand new, but looks like it had been driven by Raccoons.
So I will be driving back to Las Vegas some day, hopefully in the near future, but in the meantime, I'll search for a Galant Club with which to socialize...
