Cars, UBER and AirBnB

Cars are a problem to some degree, for cruisers. The question is Where do we leave it? Do we leave it somewhere near an airport so that it will be easy to return to by air? Do we leave it somewhere we will sail back to on the coast? Some cruisers just get rid of the car altogether when they are liveaboards.

Beginning of winter 2018-19

Last winter, before we returned to our boat in Trinidad, we left our Subaru at our friend’s cabin where we had been staying outside of Duluth, Minnesota.  A large soft-sided storage shed on their property was home to their camper, a neighbor’s snowmobiles, bikes, lawn furniture, etc.  There was plenty of room for our Subaru and we were thankful to be able to leave it there, protected from the harsh elements of winter.

Our Subaru is holding up the center support beam

In March, our friends with the cabin reluctantly contacted us to say that the shed’s roof had collapsed under 3+ feet of snow and was now resting on top of our Subaru. The story we shared amongst ourselves was this, “The Subaru took one for the team. Everything else stored in the shed was protected by our sturdy car which was pinned under the weight of the roof’s center beam.

Carl, George and Ron recover car from shed

We finally saw the damage in June. The windshield became a malleable spider web of shatterproof glass that I could push back and forth with my hand. The back window was nonexistent, and the hood had acquired a V in the center. Oddly enough, all of the car doors still opened and the engine started right up.  And yet, our Subaru was totally undriveable, being a foot shorter than the last time we’d seen it.

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Being the cost conscious folks that we are, we had removed the Comprehensive Auto insurance from the car while it was sitting safely in storage. Seemed like a smart thing to do at the time. Sigh. So, our trusty Subaru Outback went to a junk yard in return for a few hundred dollars, where it was quickly dismantled. Some lucky person now has our perfectly good engine and maybe the four doors.

Subaru became "tourist" attraction

So, you see, our primary task upon returning to the U.S. in May was to buy a “new” car in Florida.  On the first day we found the perfect auto, a 2014 Honda CRV EX with 44,000 miles.  Since then, we have driven the circle tour around the eastern half of the U.S.

Anhinga's body is submerged while
swimming, Florida

We started out in Brunswick, Georgia where we left the boat for the start of hurricane season. We drove to the Villages in Florida to visit my sister Bev and her partner. Then along the Gulf to Ocean Springs, Alabama, to enjoy an excellent meal at an ocean side restaurant owned by one of Carl’s H.S. classmates. Next stop was Hattiesburg, Mississippi where Carl received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology. After 40 years, the campus had changed so much that he recognized only a few buildings.

Palisade Head, repelling down
to Lake Superior

From there, we drove to Memphis, Tennessee to see Carl’s sisters and families and then followed the Mississippi to southeastern Minnesota where most of my family lives. Next came Duluth where we saw as many friends as we possibly could and made a trip to the Canadian border to pick up our Global Entry passes.

High water in Grand Marais, MN

The next stop was Chicago where we stayed with Carl’s son, Brian and his wife. Then it was on to Washington D.C. where Carl’s daughter, Karen is living once again. She has agreed to keep our car for us for the next few months.

Chicago

We neglected to make lodging arrangements in D.C. until a couple days before arrival, so our options were limited. It boiled down to either an expensive hotel or an expensive AirBnB.   Except, lo and behold, I did find one AirBnB that was brand new—we would be their first customers, and it was downright CHEAP! We grabbed it. 

Our AirBnB room was spacious with three beds; they were comfortable enough and we shared a bathroom. We’re easygoing about things like that. Our hosts were two males who shared the apt. I would describe them as tidy people with minimal experience in home decoration.  (I think that may be said of many males of our species.)

Subway in Washington D.C.

A slight problem arose when I said, “We would like some bath towels.”

“Oh, of course,” our host said with a strong accent, and hurried to the closet, and pulled out a fat roll of paper towels and handed it to me. Hmmm. English must be a second language for him. I needed a different tactic.

The Postal Museum is very interesting

“Towels for taking a shower,” I said pointing toward the bathtub. Our host showed me the toilet paper roll on the wall.

“No, no, I mean for bathing,” and I mimed washing my hair to illustrate the explanation.

“Oh, there is shampoo there,” he said brightly.

Carl gets wanded by Security every time =
titanium knees

This time I held my arms far apart to describe something large. “No, no, a big towel.”

“Oooh,” he said. He hunted through his closet, his roommate’s closet, the hall closet, and some drawers, without success.  Then he said, “I’m sorry, my roommate doesn’t know how to prepare for guests. He put a towel on a bed in your room. Well, okay, there was ONE towel that had been draped over a bedpost on the third bed in our room. It wasn’t folded and so I thought it was left there accidentally; maybe it wasn’t even clean. In addition, there was a small hand towel on my bed, again not folded.

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts - Susan Tedeschi and
Derek Trucks Band. Fantastic concert following a drenching downpour.

It became apparent to us that there were no more bath towels that would be forthcoming. Carl volunteered to shower using only the small hand towel. He earned extra points from me for that. I was thus left with a large bath towel for my shower. All was right with the world, or at least acceptable.

The plan for our car this summer was to leave it with Karen whose apartment in Arlington, Virginia came with a parking space but she has no car. Perfect. We would leave our car with her and rent another car to drive to Brunswick, GA where our boat is sitting in the water.  

Waiting for the Hertz rep to show up

The next day, we would drive to Hertz Rent-a-Car by noon, pick up a car and leave ours at Karen’s apt.  Then drive to Raleigh, NC to stay overnight with friends. The following day, we’d drive on to Brunswick and after loading up on groceries, return the rental car. Easy. Good plan.

We lingered in our AirBnB the next morning. We didn’t want to pick up the rental car too early in the day. When we went out at 11:00 AM, our car was gone. We did the usual thing that people do when they find their car is missing.  We looked up and down the street, you know, just on the off chance that the car had moved by itself during the night, or that maybe both of us were mistaken in remembering that we had parked it in the small lot directly in front of the AirBnB. Nope… the car had not wandered off on its’ own to a preferred location.

Back and forth on this route

Carl called the police to report our car stolen.  The officer checked our license plate and said that our car had been towed. What the..? He gave us the number of the towing company to contact. While we waited for Uber to bring us to Hertz, I walked around the front of the building again, annoyed that there had been no sign telling us not to park where we had parked.  But then, there, off to the far left of the lot, under the shade trees was a sign that said Permit Parking Only. Violators Will Be Towed. Could they have made the sign any more obscure?

Our "new" car in jail at Pete's Towing. 

So, Uber to Hertz. Then rental car back to our AirBnB to retrieve our bags. Next stop - Pete’s Towing in Falls Church, VA. The tow truck driver was apologetic. “I’m sorry your car was towed. Management called to have it towed at 12:55 AM.” We’d arrived there just a little after midnight and our AirBnB host knew we parked there.

Catbird in Raleigh, NC

From Falls Church, we drove both cars to Karen’s apartment. We deposited our car there, transferring our bags into the rental car and left for Raleigh, North Carolina finally at 2:00 PM.  As of the writing of this post, we have reason to believe that nothing bad has befallen our car sitting outside of Karen’s apt. But…….you never know about these things. Could be a hailstorm in the offing?  Maybe an earthquake, flood? Meteorite? Lesson #423 – Never Remove Comprehensive Car Insurance.

Brunswick Landing Marina on the St. Simons River, Brunswick, GA