Worst. Road. Trip. Ever.

The man from AAA tows my car.

I haven't left the country since March 2009, a fact that depresses me somewhat. That's why my sister and I found ourselves heading down California's 5 freeway last Thursday, on Christmas Eve's Eve. Our mission? To spend a few hours in Tijuana, solely so I can continue to say I've left the country every year since 2001. Yes, it counts. Or would have, anyway.

Part I – The First Leak

We left Los Angeles at about 8:30 am. After an hour of driving – about one-third of the way to TJ – we stopped for breakfast. Jackie looked at the front of my car and said, “Uh oh.” Underneath was what looked like coolant, while a barely-there sliver of smoke came out of the hood.
I asked Jackie, “What do you think?”

She said, “It’s up to you.”

Me: “Let’s just keep going another 30 miles and see.”

We made it 30 miles and I thought we were home free. But when we reached Oceanside the car started frantically smoking. I pulled over to the side of the freeway. A Good Samaritan came over and helped pour coolant. Then we spotted a leak, just like one I had the previous week, but in a different hose.

We made it to a shopping center. My AAA account was at the lowest level, meaning they would only tow me 7 miles (compared to the next highest level’s 100 miles, which could’ve taken us to my regular mechanic in Orange County, but I was cheap).

Jackie and I hit up the Starbucks with our laptops, where she looked up the problem and I researched nearby mechanics. My sister learned the leak could be temporarily patched up with duct tape – enough to get us to the mechanic. I found an auto shop that said the job would cost about $55, and another that said it would be $215. We went with the former.

Ruben replaced a leaky heater hose and ran a pressure check that confirmed there were no other leaks. Then we were on our way again, convinced everything was fine.

Part II – The Second Leak

It was now 2:30 pm and Tijuana was out of the question. I had wanted to be in the line to re-enter the U.S. by 2:30 pm since I heard it was extra long for the holidays. We decided to continue south to hit a few shops in Carlsbad and Pacific Beach, then return to the parents’ house by night to get ready for Christmas.

At about 6:15 pm we began to leave Pacific Beach. We were closely following another car when I said with dread, “Jackie, there’s smoke coming from my car.” She said, “No, that’s just from the car in front of you,” and indeed, it did seem to have an excessive amount of smoke leaving the exhaust. I dared to let myself hope.

Thirty seconds later: “No, my car is definitely smoking.”

Jackie: “What the fuck!”

We turned around for an auto parts store we saw some way back, but we didn’t make it that far. I pulled into a Midas.

They said the problem was now the lower radiator hose (“I could squeeze it right now and it would crack,” one guy said.). They couldn’t fix it until tomorrow morning because they didn’t have the part yet.

Then they gave us our quote: $200. Jackie: “For a hose?” We said we needed to think about it. The manager looked at the estimate and said, “This isn’t right.” He returned with a new estimate: $150.

Midas let us leave our car in their lot overnight, and Jackie and I headed to another Starbucks to research. I found a $50 room at a motel that was just a 1.2-mile walk away. She reached Pep Boys, who said they would do the job for $112. We told AAA to meet us at Midas the next morning and started our mile-long walk.

Part III – It was like something out of “Psycho”

The motel was along a main road and just off the freeway, but thanks to its layout, still felt hidden from the busy street. There were lots of plants and a small trellis outside each room; likely it was quite cute, but with us strolling in after dark, we thought it a bit creepy.

In our room – No. 13 – the Internet didn’t work. Worse than that, the door chain wasn’t long enough to lock the room. Jackie tried fixing the chain but with a hard yank ended up pulling it off its hinges. We texted friends to let them know where we were and “joked” that they should call the police if we didn’t contact them tomorrow. “Tell my parents I love them,” Jackie wrote. We decided we’d stack a chair, microwave and mini-fridge in front of the door.

Then we decided that was stupid. I asked Jenny, the kindly motel manager, for a room with a working chain. She gave us a bigger, nicer room. I also realized the lack of Internet was the fault of my computer and not the motel.

Still, we agreed we couldn’t get over the initial creepiness – the hidden motel, the broken door chain, the missing Internet.

“And, she’s a hunchback!” Jackie said.

“Jackie, Jenny has been very nice!”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong with being a hunchback! But it just adds to the overall creepiness!”

She only said what was on both our minds.

Part IV – I just want to go home

The next day we ended up at Joe Jr.’s, since both Pep Boys and Midas got a bunch of low reviews.

Joe Jr. is also Vietnamese, which instantly put me at ease. He told us the leak was in another heater hose and not the lower radiator hose that the Midas guy insisted was about to crack. The job would only cost $40, even less than Joe Jr. quoted over the phone.

An hour later, though, Joe came back, concerned. It turned out one of my fans wasn’t turning on. He said this might explain why the hoses have been breaking lately – the fan keeps them cool, and without it the hoses have become more brittle.

A new fan would take another two hours to obtain. Things were really starting to feel like Planes, Trains & Automobiles. So since we had to wait anyway, Jackie and I headed to the nearby Discount Gun Mart & Indoor Range, where two of the target practice sheets on offer feature dark-skinned, swarthy men. Oh, I'll just say it – one looks Middle Eastern. And the other is holding a white woman hostage (to be fair, there was also one menacing white man you could shoot).

Anyway, for a mere $45 total, my sister and I each shot 50 rounds out of a Smith & Wesson .22 caliber. I must say, I’m a pretty damn good shot, especially for my first time touching a real gun. At least, I blew my sister away. Tee hee. Blew.

It was 1:30 by the time we left Joe Jr.’s – five hours after we arrived. All the way home to Orange County I half expected more smoke to seep out of my car, but none did. Since then I’ve had no problems. Joe Jr. got a heckuva Yelp review.

The moral of the story? Forcing yourself to leave the country every calendar year to meet some arbitrary goal is stupid.