Beach Bummed

For Spring Break we had planned another family trip to the beach in the North Carolina Outer Banks. As the date approached I began to secretly scheme to take the newest member of our family on vacation with us. With my in-laws joining us for the trip, last year we found it necessary to bring a second car, so of course I thought this year would make sense to bring the MGA instead of the old Honda. I had good reason, too.  The Honda has been misbehaving lately, showing signs of needing transmission work and brake work. I'm sure when the bill comes in for those it will make the steady stream of small parts purchases I've made for the MGA look like child's play.

What goes wrong in your brain
to make you dream of this at night?

Unfortunately, even before bringing it up to Shelly I'd decided this just wouldn't work. I'm still working through all the major maintenance items and don't yet have confidence that this thing is healthy enough to rely on for a long trip (5 hours in this case). I don't mind getting stranded close to home on occasion, but if we got stuck part way to the beach it would threaten to ruin the vacation.

So the next step was finding a way to tow it down. UHaul has an auto trailer that lists for only $54.95. I figured of course that was probably for a day rental, but a week might be a few times that amount. Emboldened, I broke the news to Shelly and she was encouraging. We both pictured cruising up and down the beach in our fun little car, with the sun on our faces. A few days before our trip I went to reserve the trailer. Unfortunately, that price turns out to be per day, and the total was going to come to almost $400 for the week. Now, I love this car but that is a little steep. They had a tow dolly that leaves the rear wheels on the ground, but that would only save about $70. I talked myself into the less expensive 6x12 trailer not meant for cars, but luckily measured my car first - 13 feet of course.

Maybe there would be a cheap car trailer for sale out there. I live in suburbia with a full garage, so I have no place to store a trailer but I decided I could solve that later, either by finding a place to store, or just flipping the trailer to a new owner. Even selling it for a small loss would be cheaper than renting. I won't bore you with the details, but after a few days of obsessively following craigslist and ebay postings, I gave up on this idea. Good trailers go for a few thousand dollars, although I found some well used ones for around $1000. In my warped mental state, that was starting to sound like a reasonable idea but it all came crashing down quickly when it occurred to me to check with the DMV. By this point it was late Friday night and it turns out the process for registering trailers is about the same as with a car. No way I could get a legally registered trailer over the weekend. On Saturday morning I tried to convince a few craigslist posters to rent to me for a week and sell for the same amount the following week, but they were too smart to go for that.

With our Sunday morning departure looming, I was back to thinking about driving, but quickly discovered it will take a little more time before Shelly thinks of this as a safe car to drive on Interstate 95. She was happy to let me drive it, but made it clear she would be in the other car with our children, her parents and our dog. I decided that would not be fair to them as it would be a tight fit with all our luggage and beach gear.

Then, late Saturday afternoon we happened to drive by a local tool rental place and Shelly suggested I try there. Sure enough, they have a car dolly - weekly rental $175. Could it be? That's still a lot but I decided to go for it. I drove back with the SUV to pick it up. I backed up, and we hooked it up to the tow hitch. He dug around for the electrical hook up on my car. And then it happened. The hookup on my car needs an adapter to fit the tow dolly. They had them, but he'd never seen one like mine. I went back in to see what to do. They sent me up the street to buy an adapter at an auto parts store. I got there and found they closed early. It was now 4:00. The rental place was due to close at 4:30. Luckily I had noticed a Napa Auto Parts store on the way on the other side of the street, and I raced over there. I arrived at 4:03 and found they had shut their doors at 4:00. I know Advance Auto Parts store stays open later, but there was no way to get there and back before 4:30. I finally admitted defeat and thought of a quote I've seen from another MG owner: "There is a fine line between a 'hobby' and 'mental illness'." So true.

Well, in the end we had a fun week at the beach and the weather helped take the sting out of leaving the car behind. All but two days it was too cold, too windy, or too rainy to really enjoy the car. Maybe next year.