JabberJuls

We took a family trip to a resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. On the way there everything was going great, but the boys realized they forgot their bathing suits. So at our 1st stop at Lenwood near Barstow, we stopped for lunch and decided to go look around at the Huge Factory Outlet for swim suits. We got there and they were having such super sales that we even decided to get the boys some of their school clothes and shoes.

All happy and excited to continue on our trip, we get to our car and the air conditioning was blowing hot air. We figured it was probably just hot in the car and the ac would kick in any minute. It was 115 degrees at that time. They ac never got cold. So we stopped at the closest stop took look under the hood. Sure enough the ac compressor went out. Frustrated in the heat and dreading the drive forward to Vegas, we continued on with the windows down and drinking lots of fluids.

As we drove, we called 3 dealerships in Vegas to try to get service. The first one wouldn’t touch our car they were too busy. The second dealership had me on hold for awhile. So Russ called the third dealership to findout they couldn’t help us either. Finally, the dealership I was on hold with told us to come on in and they’ll get us taken care of. We were relieved. The Lord Provided.

Now it was just the heat to endure for the rest of the way. So I started praying in my heart asking the Lord to please relieve us from the heat and help us to make it to the planned destinations safely. No sooner than I finished, we looked over to the right to see some Flash flood rainstorms taking form. The sky around us started to slightly darken and the cloud covering brought the temperature down. Beautiful lightning streaks cracked through the sky. 89 degrees never felt so good. It even began to lightly rain; the coldest raindrops I had ever felt. We all had our hands out the window being refreshed from the cold drops. This lasted til we were a few miles from our resort. The Lord provided again.

Making good time we were able to get our car to the dealership 1-hour before they closed for the day. They checked in our car and arranged for us to have a rental vehicle during the service diagnosis for the next day. We were set for the night.

The next day we received a call around 2 or 3pm with the diagnosis. The AC compressor and surrounding parts went out and we were informed to attempt to drive the car without fixing it would just cause other problems for the vehicle putting it out of commission when we’d least expect it. So we pretty much needed to get it fixed now. Then we were informed that the ac compressor kit and parts we needed were on National Back order and would take them 8-10 days to get the parts and then a day or two to do the labor. EEEEEEKKKKK!!! We’d be stuck there another week. Russ asked if any other dealership might have our parts. They held to the not available story. So what else could we do but go ahead with the service.

Russ was in shock that no parts were available. So he called Carl Burger Dodge here in La Mesa and spoke with the parts guy there to see if they’d have the parts available. Sure enough, he said that one authorized parts wharehouse was located in Nevada only a few hours away from us, but he only had 1 kit. He also found 72 kits located in Detroit. Russ got phone numbers and addresses of the places. He called the guy in Nevada to confirm the parts and they were there allright. So Russ called our service advisor back and gave her the locations where parts are available now. We were still given excuses about shipping delays etc. Russ asked can you overnight ship it. The service provider said it costs about $60 to do that. At that point Russ was irritated and tried reasoning with her, if we had to stay in vegas for a week passed our planned time the expense of hotels, food, and our dog kenneling would be an outrageously greater cost than $60, paying the shipping would be our best choice if that’s the only thing delaying our cars services. We also expressed the freight charges should be covered by our extended warranty contract. She was a little irritated with us persuing the parts, but she got right on it and ordered the parts and they were able to get our car done by Friday. The Lord provided again.

We’ll be finding out if our warranty contract covers the freight charges today.

In between waiting for our car, we were still able to enjoy our vacation. We found an indoor skatepark that we took the boys too and went to our all-you-can-eat seafood buffett at the Rio with the kids. We went to the old vegas strip to experience the Freemont laser show to findout that the whole area has changed. All the little restaurants at the end were closed and now kids under 21 years couldn’t even go to the Golden Gate for the 99 cent shrimp cocktails and inexpensive sandwiches. The $1 margarita slushy drinks weren’t available any longer. Their excuses were during certain hours only and when we went back during those hours they were all out of cups. Of course you could buy the $10 containers though.We waited around from 6:30pm – 9:15pm for the Laser Shows that were scheduled for every hour on the hour—No shows. We did get to listen to our favorite saxaphone player there and drank some starbuck frappucino’s while we were waiting.

After finding out that the food prices have all gone competively high, we stayed at our resort and pretty much enjoyed the waterfall pools, jacuzzis, game rooms, workout facilities, and the all day air conditioning. We also met up with our friends in Laughlin on Friday night and had an awesome dinner at the Colorado Belle. While driving to their house we experienced nature’s awesome Lightening show—that made up for missing out on the Freemont Laser Shows. We also drove back over the Hoover Dam as the lightening lite up the skies. That was an experience too. I’d like to drive over that during the daylight someday to really see the beauty of it.

If anything, this trip was very eventful, informative and relaxing at the same time.