Category: driving

Posted in driving

A sweet upgrade

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

If I need a car when we travel, I prefer to rent from Alamo. They’re not always the cheapest, but I get great customer service and they usually have a good selection of cars ready to go.

After we landed in Dallas yesterday, we caught the shuttle bus to the rental car center. It’s been totally remodeled since we were last here six months ago. As we walked past all the rental company counters, I saw that the only company with a line was Alamo, with whom we had a reservation. Plenty of people were working the counter, but it looked like about a forty-five minute wait to get a car.

A small sign on a kiosk reminded me of a “skip the counter” option. I hadn’t had much luck doing that in the past, but I figured why not give it a try. This time, it worked. As I waited in the non-moving line, I added a little more info into the phone app, and in a few minutes had a ticket. I ducked out of line and headed out to get a car.

In the parking garage I showed the rental agent the bar code on my phone, which stated, “You click we pick.” When Preston saw that he said, “Ah, the mystery car.”

I said, “A batmobile?”

He chuckled and said, “I’ve been working here eight years and no one has ever come back with ‘batmobile’! Customers usually hope for a Jaguar or Ferrarri.”

I added, “Either that or Knight Rider.”

I assumed that I would get a compact car, midsize at best. But as we looked down the row of vehicles ready to go, Preston said, “Want a Jeep? I’ve got a Wrangler at the end of the row.”

My wife and I both said, “Sure!” If I had reserved a Jeep on the front end, it would have cost me twice as much. So this was a sweet upgrade and promised to be a fun way to tool around the Dallas area.

I think every time we’ve rented from Alamo at DFW, we’ve gotten some kind of upgrade, from a compact to a van or SUV. That’s why we always come back to them.

Posted in driving

King of the (lizard) world

Posted on by William Douthwaite

It’s kind of hard to see, but this little guy is perched on the hood of our car as I backed out of the driveway and headed down the street. He skittered out from under the windshield wipers and stood up like a small hood ornament.

I wondered out loud, “How fast do you think I can go before he flies away?” I couldn’t accelerate much in the neighborhood. But maybe he’d hold on until we got on a bigger road. Or maybe even the interstate. Wouldn’t it be fun to have that wind in your face?

I didn’t get to find out. He didn’t hang on very long. He scooted over to the edge of the hood and disappeared over the side.

I’ll bet he could have hung on. He can climb up the walls of our house, trees in the yard, up the slats of the fence, and he had no problem getting up on to the hood.

Had I stepped on the gas sooner, I could have given him a “king of the world” moment, right?

Posted in driving

Keep your distance

Posted on by William Douthwaite

If you look carefully, you’ll see that the light is red. There are two cars stopped ahead of me. And then there is this car just to my right, twenty-five feet from the intersection. As we wait, she doesn’t inch forward until the light turns to green. “Uh-oh,” I think to myself. I’ll bet she’s going to try to merge in my lane when we start moving.

But she doesn’t. I leave room, but she makes no move. I watch carefully, but she keeps going straight, even after I turn left at another light about a thousand feet ahead.

So, as I often do, I wonder, “What is going on here?”

  • Maybe she’s a super cautious driver. She wants to keep a safe distance from the intersection in case someone is crossing the street. Don’t you hate it when you have to walk around a car sticking it’s nose into the crosswalk?
  • She doesn’t want to tailgate. We all hate tailgaters, don’t we? Oh, wait, there’s no one ahead of her.
  • The obvious: she’s on the phone. Maybe she’s been on the phone, and still doesn’t notice that the people ahead of her drove away when the light turned green. Oblivious, she’s waiting through another cycle.
  • Did her car stall out? She could have been calling AAA at that moment. Cars break down in the worst possible situations, right?
  • Maybe she knows the people in the SUV ahead of me and was talking to them. The light is red, so she can’t go anywhere anyway.
  • She could be hallucinating. Maybe she sees two cars in front of her that no one else can see. Hmm.
  • Invisible cars ahead of her? The car’s automatic braking sensors knows there there. Stopped that car on a dime.
  • I’ve eaten in the car before. I remember driving a stick shift on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, tossing a token for the toll, and eating a cup of blueberry yogurt on my way to a class a Rutgers. Maybe she doesn’t multitask well, and a snack distracted her.
  • Was she lost? Was she trying to get Google Maps to give her directions?
  • One more. It’s an malfunctioning autonomous car. There ‘s a bug in the software, so there she sits.

I never know what I’m going to see on the road.