Rental cars

This is my first adventure of writing on my IPad from a little hotel in North Western Nevada. First things first, it was so nice hearing from all my kids on Mothers Day. I am blessed!

So, let's talk rental cars. I prefer putting milage on a rental car than on my car. Let the rental car company pay for the oil change & new tires. So for this wonderful trip, I rented a car, or should I say multiple cars?

First, I make the reservation, so far, pretty easy. Mary drives me to an off airport site to pick up the car...If I use my Debit card for the rental,they will have to charge for the car plus $250. deposit! So, thankfully, Mary offers to use her credit card, to avoid the extra deposit.

Simple so far? Not really...they ask for both of our drivers licenses, mine is California, her's is Washington. This is great they say and tell us the price, same as the Internet! Still going well, until we offer them our Utah address. If we live in Utah, the price just went up? (wait, we are renting the car in Salt Lake, right?). So, Mary gives her old address in Washington, and I pull the Lemons address out of the recesses of my mind, because they of course couldn't use the P.o. Box address that is on my drivers license...

So, now it comes to the car, they have a new computer system, and it is easier for the rental car person to physically walk out to find the car. Descent looking car, seems nice, we sign the papers & I get in the car to leave when I notice, no cruise control, so I go back in and tell them about the lack of Cruise control. To which the young man, actually looks at me and says, "Let me go out and look for you...sometimes these newer cars can be tricky to find." What the heck? Did he really just say, Listen granny, things have changed since the horse and buggy days? Punk!

He comes in amazed..go figure...no cruise control! They then try to trade it out for a different car, that the new computer system, won't let them, because it needs an oil change. So, after more looking out in the wet (pouring rain by this time) they have me take a little SUV, not what I had planned on, but ok. I get in the new car, get on the freeway to go home & pick up my suitcases.

On the freeway, front wipers will only go on slow, and the back windshield wiper wasn't working at all. After I get home I check the back window, and reason it is not working is because it was totally missing. So pack the car and back I go to rental car place. Get there, of course there is now a new agent! I start out by apologizing for having a problem, started to explain, when she said she knew who I was. Great! So if this was a restaurant, my milkshake just got spat in!

She says that she just had another customer call about the same thing, so she believed me, ( so if the other customer hadn't called, I would have been lying??? Finally, I got a great fully operational car, and I just drove 500 miles, stopped just outside of Reno.

Thought for tonight? Maybe taking your own car is worth the price of an oil change! Nite...