MWNews 51

This will have to be a quick note. We are about to leave and pick up the van. I'll tell the story now, but might not have time for anything else.
Michael, as you might remember, is supposed to be on his way to Perth to live. No money, no job, and a place to live for just a month. But he is off as soon as he can get out of here. We owe him some money, so we are keeping that for an emergency plane flight back when this adventure has run its course. He says he is not coming back, nothing to do with us, and he will move to Brisbane next, but I think he might be back sooner than he expects. To give you some idea, he has decided to take some of his toys instead of clothes because he says he can always buy more clothes when he gets there. I think we might have talked him out of that idea, but we will see. It gives you some idea about how ready he is for this move.
Anyway, I mention this because we were on our way to the airport to drop him off. We got about halfway, still on the main highway from here, just before we turn off to go into Sydney, and I noticed that the van was kind of shaking or vibrating a little. I thought it might be the rode, but I had the cruise control on and I put on the brakes to slow down and turn it off. The vibrations stopped and I went along a ways costing down a hill. I did not step on the gas but as the car had not vibrated anymore, I put the cruise control back on. This caused a large cloud of smoke to billow from under the hood. I immediately started to pull over and stop in a phone box section.
A little side note, in Australia, most civilized places, they have phone boxes along the rode every kilometer or so. It is really a great convience, although it only connects to the local govenment sanctioned insurance company. In our case, the NRMA. I have no idea what NRMA stands for, but in other states they have RACQ and NRMH and things like that. There are other insurance companies you can get, and most of them are cheaper, but these apparently have something to do with the govenment at some point and they allow them to put these call boxes along the rodes and they allow their service trucks to use the emergency turn around places on the freeways. There are other perks they are allowed, that other companies are not, but I am pretty sure they are now a private company but have retained the rights to these services. Not sure how that works nor why the other insurance companies have not sued them for access, but it does work out well for those who have these specific insurance companies.
Unfortunately, the van does not carry this insurance. We have the mandatory insurance, which covers everything in an accident, but we do not have rodeside service. We had it when we were in Queensland, but have never put it on the cars we have now. We meant to, but never got around to it. Lot of good that does us now.
As I pulled into this service area, really just a wide spot on the shoulder of the road, I noticed that the car was either barely running or not running at all. I had very little brakes or steering, so I would assume the car was not running, but there was still a lot of smoke coming out from under the hood and it seemed to be sputtering. I got it stopped and turned off the key. The smoke went away immediately and the car wasn't really doing anything anymore. I tried to start it back up, but it would not start. At that point, we were about 45 minutes from the airport and we have about two hours before his flight.
I let the car cool for a few minutes and tried to start it up again. It tried to start for a long time, but when it eventually caught, it started putting our smoke again and running very rough. I turned it back off. Being the normal Jernigan mechanic, I went to look under the hood to see if maybe a rabbit or a squirrel had crawled up in there. I looked for these telltale signs because I knew if it was not something as obvious as that, I would not be able to do anything about it nor even recognize what the problem was.
No rabbit or squirrel.
At this point, we are officially stranded. I picked up the courtesy phone and found NRMA on the other end of the line. They said they would be glad to come pick us up, for $300 cash and the cost of towing. It seems they have planned for people like us, who want to join in an emergency to get the free towing from roadside service and they have tacked on a 48 hour waiting period from the time you join until you can use the service. They charge a $300 emergency joining fee if you want to bypass the 48 hour waiting period. I suppose that makes sense to them, but it puts all those people, like us, who are actually having an emergency in a bad spot. Seems only the rich can afford emergency service, and if you are rich, you probably have the roadside service anyway, so it really comes down to a tax on the poor. But I digress. I am sure it makes sense to the insurance companies and I am sure it makes sense to everyone else, just not to the people who actually need the service. It doesn't cost them any more to allow people to join and use the service. They still get their joining fee and a years worth of payments, so I am not sure what other justification they need to not allow people to use their service unless they know in advance that they are going to need it. I suppose it means that they can collect fees from people who might not use the service instead of allowing people to join immediately who actually will use it and they might lose money on the deal. But now I have really digressed.
The phone operator did give us the number of another towing service in the area. I have no idea whether these people were any good or honest, but they are recommended by the NRMA, so we have to assume they are reliable. I called them. They wanted $180 cash, up front, before they would come out and pick up the van. I did not have $180 cash on me, so that was not an option.
At this point, we are 45 minutes away and we now only have about an hour and a half before his flight leaves. The cutoff time for checkin is 30 minutes and they absolutely, positively, do not allow anyone to check in for the flight after that. We called the airlines. They were very helpful. They said they would wave the 30 minute checkin time. With no way of getting there, that was an interesting concession on their part, but it did not or would not help Michael. We asked if he could be scheduled on a later flight. They said not without 24 hours notice. We said we did not know the car would break down 24 hours before. They said they will make a note of that. We asked if he could get a refund on his ticket. They said no, the tickets were non-refundable. Juanita was doing all the talking to them, I still do not speak Australian, and she decided the best course of action was to hang up the phone and not begin a verbal abuse of this arilines.
We started calling friends at this point. Juanita's phone is a pre-payed phone, which means you pre-pay a certain about of credit and you can only use that until it runs out and you have to renew the credit on the phone. Long story, but it is to help parents keep their kids from running up hugh phone bills. Michael bought this phone for himself but decided he wanted Juanita's phone instead and they traded.
Her phone ran out of credit. Michael's phone was not charged. My phone was charged, but not very much. We had the car charger with us but we could not start to the car to use it. We could plug my phone in to re-charge it, but that would run down the battery. So, we made the calls we could, until my phone ran out, and then we decided we needed the phone more than we needed the battery and plugged it in.
About this time, a nice policeman pulled up alongside our car. I had just tried to start the engine again and it poured out smoke so he thought the car was on fire and stopped to help. I explained the situation to him. He offered to take two of us, there were five adults and the two kids in the car, to the nearest train station. Juanita decided it would be best if those she and Michael took the offer so they could try to make the airport from the train. I told them it would probably not make it and they would have to pay the airport excess fee for taking the train to the airport, which is about $15 a person, but they said they would try anyway.
They left but Natalie was still calling friends to see if they could come help. She got ahold of Adam's sister, who lives near us, and she said she would come pick them up. She said she could only take three people in her car. Not sure why, but I didn't ask. That meant she could take Adam, Natalie and one of the kids. I said Maeghan would have to stay with me. About 20 minutes later, his sister called back. She said some friend of hers would also come and she could take people in her car. That allowed Maeghan to ride with them but left me waiting at the car. They arrived about 45 minutes after that.
In the meantime, I had called Juanita to see how they were going. It was 09:50 and his flight was leaving at 09:55. If they were not already at the airport, they would not make the flight. They were still at central station with the next train due in 10 minutes. I told them there was no use in going all the way there, so they decided to return home. The reason they were not at the airport yet was that apparently, there was a fire alarm along the tracks and their train had been delayed along the way. They might not have made it anyway, but it seems Michael was not destined to go to Perth on that day.
After Adam's sister had picked up everyone but me, I called Juanita and told her she would have to arrange with Adam to have him pick up my car at home, and drive to the train station to pick them up when they arrived. They would then have to drive up to where the car was broken down and pick me up. I later decide that it would be cheaper for me to just walk to the train station and come to where they were being picked up and we could all be picked up at the same time. It is about a 5 mile walk to the train station from where we were and I had to carry everything that was in the car with me so it would not be vadalized and stolen while it sat on the side of the road. I did manage to walk all that way but finding a mountain shortcut to climb and take me to the station in about 3 miles. It was up a steep incline and over two fences, but I managed to do it without getting arrested for traspassing.
So, two hours or so later, we are all home. The car is on the side of the rode about 45 minutes away and we have no way of getting a tow truck there to pick it up. Juanita started calling tow companies to see if they could pick up the van, bring it to us and do it all for under $200. No luck. But she did find a company that would tow it to their yard and keep it until we were ready to have it delivered to us. It turns out today is the day we want it delivered. So, we are on our way to see how much it will be, and arrange for it to be delivered when someone will be home.
Juanita is standing over me ready to go, so I am going to end this story now. Not a lot about Maeghan and William in this issue, other than to mention that a big reason for getting someone to take them home from the broken down car was that William was all over the place, climbing into everything and it was becoming a real chore to keep him settled. But I have to go, so I will let you know how this turns out in the near future. I'll get back to the more fun stuff at that time. Until next time.
Talk to you later