All the Things that Went Wrong - Part Two

Day Two - Wednesday, August 26

- Rather than pulling into McDonalds for breakfast, I pulled into the taco place right beside it. Everyone made fun of me.

- While leaving McDonalds this lady in another car was making funny gestures at me. I rolled down the window to her screaming, "You're going the wrong way! This is one way!!!" I didn't really care. The lane was big enough for 3 cars.

- At noon my vehicle arrived at some small little town on the I-5 for lunch. The other car was about 30 mins behind us. They texted to let me know the oil light had come on AND the engine light was now on as well.

- When they caught up to us we decided to use Chelsea's GPS to find a nearby Toyota dealership. The GPS's name was Lola. Lola told us we had to drive 30 mins back the way we came. After eating lunch that's exactly what we did.

- So we drove back to Manteca, California. As we approached the destination I noticed multiple car dealerships. We were on the right track...until we passed where Lola said to go and saw no Toyota places. So we drove around the block and looked again. Sure enough, Lola had led us astray. There was no Toyota place.

- The nearest Toyota dealership was in Modesto. 30 mins in another direction!

- When we brought the car in, the guys there seemed like idiots. They said it'd be a couple hours before they'd be able to look at it, so we went to Starbucks and waited.

- After 2 hours I got the good news. The VVTi Actuator gear was on its last legs and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately they didn't have that part, but they could get it in tomorrow. We needed to be at Disneyland tomorrow. So we left the car there, rented another one, and away we went. It was 5pm by the time we left. We were supposed to be in Malibu by 5:30!

- We were driving through Fresno when we decided to stop for supper. The other car chose when to get off and I remember thinking in my head, "I hope they choose an okay part of town." Fresno has got some rough areas. We pulled over into Burger King. It was sketcky. Matt even found a crack pipe in the bathroom.

- As we neared the Los Angeles area, Chelsea gave Lola the Houweling's address. Now, there are a lot of things that went wrong in this situation. I can't really explain all the things that were going through my mind, but I didn't trust Lola at this point. Not just because of the Manteca Toyota fiasco, but because I was under the impression the Houweling's address was too new for the GPS to recognize it. Anyways, Lola kept telling me to turn, but we were nowhere near the off-ramp Casey told me to take, so I ignored her.

- We were following the directions Casey gave me, but I made a critical error. On the google map highway 118 turns into 23. But I could see that the 118 continued, except on google maps it wasn't a major highway. After 118 we were to connect onto the 101. If we had continued on the 118 it did connect to the 101 but you would have to backtrack to get to the exit we needed. The 23 also connected with the 101. Okay, this is all really confusing to explain, but logically it made more sense looking at the map that I should follow the 23. I thought that Casey didn't realize the 118 turned into the 23. Alright! This is so complicated, but that actually wasn't the critical error. But these are my thoughts going through my sleep-depraved, stress-ridden, 11pm night driving brain.

- THE critical error happened as we went to connect with the 101. We were on the phone with the Houwelings just as we were coming up to it and I got confused. I could either go North to Ventura or South to Los Angeles. The confusing part was that on the map highway 101 goes East to West! I knew I needed to go West, but I didn't know if it was Northwest or Southwest. Uggh! So we asked for help over the phone and they said, "South to Los Angeles!" Now, that would have been the right direction if we had continued on the 118 and were now hitting the 101, but that is not where we were. The Houwelings did not realize we were on the 23. And so we went South, when we should have gone NORTH!!!

- As we began going South I knew we weren't going in the right direction according to the map, but I thought to myself, "The map must be incorrect because the address is too new." By the way, Lola was completely freaking out at us, because she actually knew the right way to go. The address wasn't too new, as I had been made to believe, and Lola even knew the fastest way to get there, which was to turn way earlier than Casey's directions had said.

- After driving for 20 mins I realized we were way off course and turned around. We made it to the Houwelings at about midnight. It was so ridiculous. If we had followed Lola's directions we would have gotten there at around 10:40. When we told Casey about Lola he said, "Oh yeah, you should have followed her. I've never actually driven here from that direction."

- Estimated time of arrival in Malibu: 5:30pm. Actual time of arrival: Midnight.

- Finally able to fall asleep at around 1am I heard a chime. Shane and I wake up, "Was that a clock or the doorbell?" Pretty odd for the doorbell to be ringing at 1am. Then comes a knock at our door. Shane gets up. There are two police at the door letting us know we've left the lights on on our van!