Somehow I could feel God up in heaven laughing at me as my quick overnight trip to San Diego quickly became more expensive than my first class trip to Europe last November. The plan was to drive from LA to SD on Saturday morning, check out Mindinho’s batizado (annual capoeira event for my non-capoeira friends) and head back home the next evening. Easy and cheap as I only had to pay for gas (which was still under $4.00/gallon) and for the capoeira workshops. I’d find someone’s couch to crash on so no need to pay for a hotel.
The night before I left for San Diego I found out I would be travelling with two French capoeiristas who just landed in LA and needed a way to get to the event. Boy – am I glad they ended up coming along.
All was good and uneventful the first half of the trip. We left early, stopped at Target for a few things and then on our way for the two hour drive. Then the oil light came on … and not the yellow one that’s a nice reminder, but the angry, blinking red one. Hmm…that didn’t seem good. i’d just topped off the oil earlier that week so it shouldn’t be low. Was this something more serious?? We pulled off the road in Laguna Niguel and had a mechanic take a look. Of course as is always the situation, the red light decided not to come on when he was in the car. He really didn’t know what was causing it, but just to be safe since I had an hour drive ahead of me, he changed the oil and filter on my car and said all should be fine. After an hour delay (during which I introduced my two French guests to our huge American breakfasts), we were on our way again. As I was paying the mechanic, the mechanic’s assistant mentioned I had a small oil leak, but that it was no big deal and I’d have no problem getting to San Diego. hahaha – boy was he wrong.
About 20 minutes out of Laguna Nigel, blink blink blink…the red light was back. Son of a biscuit! Now I was less than an hour from our destination and since the mechanic said it very well could just be an electrical short that was causing the light to go off, I decided to just keep going. I was nervous, but things seemed to be going OK on the freeway so we kept trucking along….until I pulled off the freeway in San DIego. The first major intersection we came to my little Audi decided she’d had enough. A violent shake, a little sputtering and that was all. My car was dead. I turned the ignition key in vain, but I’d pushed her to her limit. Thank goodness for my two new friends and they jumped out of the car, and pushed her out of the packed intersection. Right between a Midas garage (convenient) and a strip club (entertaining).
The Midas guys did NOT look hopeful as they came out to the street to look at my car. It was clear there was no way I would be driving my car back to LA by the next day, so AAA to the rescue. I had my car towed all the way back to Culver City – luckily all but the lats 25 miles were covered by my membership. After paying $100 for a diagnostic test at Pep Boys I was told my engine was completely dead and I’d need a new one which would run about $10,000. What??? At that point, I might as well get a whole new car. Something I had absolutely no plans to invest in at this point…I’d just paid off my car a few months ago and was looking forward to no car payments for at least a year or so.
I was about to start making the rounds of all the local car dealers when my friend Selena stepped in to save me at least a few thousand dollars. She put me in touch with her mechanic who was able to get me a good deal on a used engine. Still with the towing, the trips to the mechanics, the engine, and the 2 weeks of a rental car, this quick trip to San Diego ended up costing more than my first class trip to England and Germany (including the flight, hotel, food and shopping).
I’ve never been a huge fan of San Diego and this experience just confirmed it for me.
