Post-accident car shopping, part III: We try Wasilla

Soon it was the next day, Saturday, and I did not want to go to Kendall Ford. I didn't want to go back to Anchorage, either. I just wanted to stay home, but we had just over two days before we had to return the rental car to Enterprise and I had to get this car shopping done.

So I dropped Margie off at Wal-Mart after lunch and then headed to Kendall Ford, right here in Wasilla, Alaska. What you see above is what I saw when I got there, right after I stepped out of the rental car. For those of you who care about this kind of thing, the temperature was about -20 F (compared to -50's and -60's in several Interior Alaska communities).

This is Bob, the salesman who was standing at the door when I entered. He used to be a photographer in Livingston, Montana, before he left that state for Alaska to escape the teeming crowds. He immediately took my case and brought me into his cubbyhole. I told him that I was mighty interested in the Toyota RAV, but was willing to take a look at the Escape.

He said that the RAV was a real good car, but the Escape was even better. I told him the Toyota salesman told me that the Escape was a great car, but the RAV was even better. He said one could look up comparisons on the internet and then he was quite certain the Escape would come out ahead.

We talked about other aspects, too, like gas mileage, insurance, colors and such.

I was tired and sleepy, so he gave me a cup of coffee. I appreciated the generosity and the caffeine worked okay, but the coffee was not very good.

Bob elicited the help of a colleague named Steve to take me on a test drive of a red Escape, the color that I had requested. It took about half-an-hour for him to get it warmed up enough where he felt comfortable taking me out in it.

In the meantime, I chatted with Bob, and sipped very slowly on that coffee.

Here we go on the test drive. Driving the Taurus, even with winter-tires and studs, I have become accustomed to slipping and sliding a bit everywhere I go around here this time of year. The Escape just had factory tires and no studs. We searched out icy roads, one with a steep hill.

The Escape handled beautifully. It did not slip, it did not slide. As we approached an icy intersection, a guy in a pickup truck ran a stop sign right in front of us, within collision distance. I slammed on the brakes. The Escape stopped in short order.

After we returned, Bob wanted to make a deal with me right then, but I told him I had to discuss it with Margie and that I wanted to compare the Escape and the RAV on the web and sleep on it. I told him I still favored the Toyota, which I had never driven. I told him I would bring Margie back to see the Escape and go for a drive in it.

He said, "okay." He gave me a sheet with numbers on it, something neither of the other two salesman had done. That was where he had the advantage, because those numbers were better than the numbers for the Toyota.

I got on the computer and looked up many comparisons between the RAV 4 and the Escape. They consistently came out exceedingly close together, but with a slight advantage to the RAV.

After I picked Margie up from work and drove her home, I found an email from Bob in my computer. He had sent me a copy of the vehicle sticker. No other salesman emailed me any information. Margie wondered why I only looked at the Escape and the not the Fusion. So I sent an email to Bob and he responded with the same numbers for the Fusion.

Soon it was Sunday. I did not want to go back to Kendall and I did not want to drive to Anchorage. At noon, Jake, Lavina and Kalib joined me in the rental car and we drove to IHOP to meet Margie for breakfast. I had already eaten oatmeal earlier, but so what.

Here we are, driving to IHOP. It is cold weather that makes exhaust thick like this. I bet you could hardly even breathe in Fairbanks on this day.

Margie, Melanie, Lisa and Lavina all accompanied me to look at the Fusion. Margie had slipped on the ice in the Wal-Mart parking lot, had fallen and hurt her knee. She was pretty uncomfortable.

Steve set out to warm up the Fusion. After about 15 minutes, I grew impatient and wanted to take the test drive. "I don't want you to get cold," he said, "maybe we should let it warm up a little longer."

"We're Alaskans," I answered. "It's not going to bother us."

"Okay," he said, "we'll go now."

Here is Melanie, scraping off the windshield just before the test drive. The Fusion handled nice, but it did slip and slide a bit, as one would expect. Then we took another ride in the Escape. I wanted Margie to drive but her knee hurt too bad.

Afterward, of all the cars that we had looked at, Margie was leaning toward the Fusion. Melanie was working hard to find a way to steer us away from Ford altogether. I still liked the RAV best. Bob insisted that he did not want to pressure us, but he did want to make the sale before we left.

He said he had talked to the guy in the big office and he had told him that if we agreed to buy the car tonight, he would throw in an auto start - but only tonight. After tonight, the auto-start would not be available.

Even so, we left to go home and think about it. 

I am not quite sure how we came to what we came to, because all the time I liked the RAV best but had resigned myself to the Fusion but, come Monday, Margie and I were talking. We had to get the deed done before evening, because we needed to turn the rental car back in.

(I must note that Melanie offered to let us borrow her car for a week or two and she would walk about Anchorage and ride the bus and have Charlie take her here and there. It would be worth it, she said, to give us more time to think about it and make the right choice - but I could not take my daughter's transportation from her.)

I felt under terrible pressure. I did not want to drive back to Anchorage and start haggling with Toyota again. I did not want to go back to Kendall.

And then, somehow, we decided to go with the Escape.

So I called Bob and told him to get it ready, "but only if you throw the autostart back in," I said. "Otherwise, we go to Anchorage." When the time came, we drove to Kendall, but before we got there we stopped at A&W/KFC. Here we are, in the drive through. I don't know who the woman ahead of us is. Margie ordered chicken strips, mashed potatoes and Diet Pepsi. I ordered a hamburger and fries, plus Pepsi. 

I have no idea what the woman in front of us ordered.

We parked in the lot to eat our lunch. This raven came hopping to the car. The raven asked me for a french fry, so I gave him one. Or her one. How would I know?

Here we are, in Bob's cubby hole, the Escape that will soon be ours parked outside the window. I do not know who the man is, and I have no idea who he is talking to. I was kind of worried that he might lean against the Escape, but he didn't.

Bob said the man in the office was unhappy that he had thrown the autostart back in. 

One always wonders what really gets said back in the office.

So we financed the Escape for six years, at 4.7 percent interest. This is Ryan, the guy who put the financing together. He is punching numbers. Or maybe he is crunching them. We've got to pay them.

Just before we drive away, Bob points out things like where the coolant goes, how to find the dipstick, the head-bolt heater plug in - stuff like that. 

Then we drove off into the night, me in the Escape, Margie in the Caravan. Her knee still hurt, but she was able to drive it.

Sure enough, when we dropped the Caravan off at Enterprise, they blamed us for the chipped windshield. They hung on to our $50 deposit, said it would be used to fill in the chip and anything left over would be refunded back to our credit card. I protested, because we had nothing to do with any chip in the windshield. He said they had records and could only go by the records, but if someone else, somewhere else, found a record of the already chipped windshield, then we would get the whole $50 back.

I don't hold it against the guys behind the desk. They're just doing their job. Still, those little chips can be hard to see on a walk-around, hard to distinguish from beads of ice. So I am aggravated, to get charged by Enterprise for something that I had nothing to do with.

But that's how it is.

"I think we did the right thing," Margie said as we drove home. "I feel good about it. We bought an American car from an American company. We're bolstering the economy."

And not only that, but in our conversations with Bob, I learned that he has a cat, a Siamese. That cat is always there to greet him when he comes home from work.

Thanks to us, Bob can buy more catfood for that cat.

I feel pretty good about that.

Post-accident car shopping excursion, part II: We give Anchorage a try

At first, we thought we would do all our car shopping here in the valley, but Margie and Kalib both had doctor appointments in Anchorage. Plus, while I was leaning toward Ford, in no small part because they are an American company but did not participate in the bailout, I also wanted to check out Toyota and Subaru. 

First, we had to pick up the rental car that Joey Seibert, Progressive Insurance Adjuster, had reserved for us. So we had Kalib drop us off at Enterprise car rentals. The only vehicle they had available was a big, red, Dodge Caravan. They had us do the usual walk-around to check for dings, cracked windshields and such, and then we drove away, towards Anchorage.

We had barely gotten back on the highway when suddenly I noticed a tiny chip in the windshield, a bit higher than my head. I pointed it out to Margie. "Looks like we're in trouble now!" I said. "They will blame us and make us pay for it."

"I saw it when we got in, but I thought it was a small piece of ice," Margie answered. And then I noticed still another tiny chip, on the lower right hand side. 

There was no point in turning around and going back, because they hold you responsible for any damage not on their sheet from the moment you turn on the ignition and start to drive.

So we pressed on to Anchorage. Always, when one nears Anchorage, the plume of steam on the left can be seen rising into the air. Usually, the plume on the right is invisible, except that as you draw near you see the distortions caused by the refractions of light passing through it.

When the temperature is far enough below zero (F. of course) both plumes show. Once we reached town, we headed toward Tudor, where the Alaska Native Medical Center is located. Not far away was a marque that said 11:43 AM, -20 degrees.

Not bad for Anchorage which, by Alaska standards, is thought of as a warm town. Of course, East Anchorage is much colder than the airport, which sits right by the inlet and where the official temperatures are taken.

Margie had two doctor appointments, and after I dropped her off for the second one, I saw two friends from the village of Wainwright exit the hospital and head towards the waiting taxi-cabs.

No point in that. So I gave Rossman and Helen Peetook a ride to the Day's Inn on Fifth Avenue. Helen had taken a fall in November and had suffered a badly-broken leg. They had been in Anchorage since mid-November, but now they were going to go home.

Rossman is a whaling captain. Many times, he and Helen have fed their community with the rich flesh of the bowhead whale, as he is an extremely skilled whaling captain. He knows the ways of the Arctic seas, and the animals that live within and upon. I never traveled with his crew, but I have been on the ice with him for extended periods of time.

After I dropped Rossman and Helen off, I headed toward the nearest Wells Fargo bank and drove into the drive-through to deposit the $2833 check Joey Seibert had made out to me. I wanted it to be available for the down payment, should we close a deal this day. As I waited for my receipt, this fellow made a transaction of his own in the lane adjacent to the teller's window.

Kalib had suffered through his one-year old shots - five of them, so Lavina took the afternoon off to be with him. Here they are, getting into the rented Caravan. This meant that they were going to go car shopping with Margie and me.

When Margie, Lavina and Kalib had traveled to Arizona together last year, they had rented a Subaru Forester and they had liked it. This is Raymond Leddon, the Subaru salesman who helped us out. He led me past the 2009 Foresters to some "slightly used - by rental car agencies and such" 2008's that the dealer wanted to clear off the lot. I then did a test drive on some icy roads. I gunned it, I slammed on the brakes, I turned the steering wheel too sudden, sharp and fast.

And the Forester performed beautifully. I never even came close to losing control. "That's why its the most popular car in Alaska," Leddon boasted. He said it was the very car he had bought for his wife, who had some health problems and so needed a car that was both easy to operate, yet safe on ice and snow.

I was sold - but not necessarily on the 2008. Subaru made some significant changes between the '08 and '09 models and you could tell just by looking that the '09 was a much more substantial vehicle. Plus, I did not like the idea of buying a used rental car. People can be hell on rental cars.

Sold though I was, I had intended to check out Toyota in Anchorage and Ford in Wasilla. And we had promised Melanie that we would meet her at 3:30 at the Kaladi Brothers coffee shop by Title Wave Books.

As we prepared to drive away, Mr. Leddon gave us the thumbs up. He didn't work Sunday but, by gum, if we wanted to come back to town on Sunday he'd come to work that day, anyway, just for us.

"I can't promise," I said, "but right now, your Forester is in first place!"

Perhaps, if I had driven the 2009 model, we would have returned immediately after our visit with Melanie at Kaladi's. I liked the Forester.

Melanie took great interest in our shopping expedition. She wanted to do all that she could to help us find a car that was both economical and green, and I do not mean in color. She brought her iPhone to Kaladi's, hopped onto the web, and gave us some good advice on what was good and what was not.

Here she is showing us a Taurus wagon, or SUV. "It is not good," she said. "Don't get it."

About 4:00 PM, we headed toward the Toyota dealer. This is us, passing through Anchorage on our way there.

Now we have arrived at Kendall Toyota. We have yet to step into the showroom.

Now we have just entered the show room, where we were met by an enthusiastic salesman by the name of Jason. He gave Kalib a "high five." Kalib does not yet know what a high five is, but he enjoyed it, anyway.

I took an immediate interest in the RAV 4. The one on display was pretty damned expensive, nearly $30,000 and the payments were mighty high. Jason said he could get us into a "certified, pre-owned" version at a price we could afford and it would be just as good as if it were brand new.

It would be warranted and everything; certified by Kendall to be in perfect running order. He got out a flip chart that listed all the different parts, features and so on that Kendall certified, to prove to us that a used car would be as good as a new one.

There were several pages to the flip chart and Jason flipped through them all. Not only did I absorb every sentence, but each single word.

I wanted a red one, so he had the workers warm one up and pull it up to the door. This took about half-an-hour, because it was quite chilly.

I didn't get to test drive it, though. Jason test drove it - down some exceedingly icy and slick back roads and he drove like a lunatic - made my performance in the Forester look tame. He was gunning it, slamming on brakes, turning it sharp to the side in the very slickest of places, and always in complete control.

"This is an Alaska car!" he said. "You can't get a better car for Alaska than the Toyota Rav!"

I now felt very bad for Mr. Ledden, because I was completely sold on the RAV. I saw no point in driving home without it - and yet, I felt that we should still look at Ford. Compare the RAV to the Escape.

In the above picture, Kalib is not waving to me. He is waving to salesman Jason. Kalib really liked Jason. I did, too. I wanted to buy the Rav 4, from Jason. It now seemed kind of pointless to even go look at a Ford. Maybe if Jason had let me do the test drive, I would have bought the RAV on the spot. 

It was late now and we needed sustenance before hitting the highway home. We had not eaten steak in a long time, but Margie had a craving for one and after what she had been through, I figured she better have one. So Lavina called Jake. The best steak houses were all behind us, and I did not want to go backwards. So we agreed to meet at Applebee's on Muldon, which was more or less on the way home.

As we neared the restaurant, I saw an emergency vehicle leave the scene of an accident ahead of us. When we reached it, wreckage debris was scattered about the road, but it didn't look that bad. Still, you never know.

Not long after we were seated, a waitress came by and took our drink orders. Shortly thereafter, she took our dinner orders. After that, there was no more "short" involved. It became a long ordeal. Lavina and I had both ordered tall lemonades and we took our time drinking them.

Then the waitress brought us more, and we took our time with these.

After a very long time, the dishes that we had ordered were finally brought to us. I had ordered a baked potato, but got mashed potatoes instead. The waitress saw that this was a mistake, took my plate and said she would be right back with the baked potato.

After she left, Jacob, Lavina and Margie discovered that they had no eating utensils, and neither did I. Oh, well. We would just tell the waitress when she brought my plate back with the baked potato on it.

As we waited... and waited... and waited... we drank another round of lemonade. Then the lemonade was gone. We waited. We waited. We waited. Lavina got up and went to the waiter's station, found it unmanned, but did find one set of silverware. She snatched it up, then gave it to Margie.

If you click on this picture and blow it up a bit, you will see that many people seem to be looking around, waiting.

Then we waited... oh, did we wait! If even one waitress had come near to us, I would have grabbed her attention, but none did. No! Not one!

After about three weeks (maybe I exaggerate, slightly) the waitress finally came with my plate. I noted that the other diners at our table were still sitting there, waiting for silverware so they could begin to eat their food. The waitress's face went pale. She ran off to get some silverware.

This involved more waiting, but the shrimp that I had ordered along with my steak came skewered on long, thin, sticks, shish-kabob style. I picked up a stick with six shrimp on it and took a bite. It was cold. It was not warm. It was cold.

Eventually, we got our silverware. Now I could cut my steak and put a fork in it. It, too, was cold. Well, at least the potato should be hot. No, it was cold!

At this moment, the manager came by with a pleasant smile upon her face and asked how we were enjoying our evening at Applebee's.

She picked up the entire tab and promised us that this would not happen again, that next time we came to Applebee's we would have an excellent dining experience. She insisted that it was not the fault of the dedicated server, but that they were experiencing problems in the kitchen. The mortified waitress was extemely apologetic. She must make a living, so we took the manager at her word and left a tip for the waitress.

I appreciate what the manager did, and we did get a free meal out of the experience, but I would have preferred a hot one.

IHOP Sunday: A toddler never escapes the gaze of another toddler; Who did you vote for, Wasilla pitbull? Car search begins: The Insurance Adjuster

Kalib and Cade spot each other at IHOP. I wonder if they might be buddies one day? Not if Lavina has her way - she wants the whole family, including us, to move back to Arizona as soon as possible. Margie does, too - at least for the winter months. Me, Alaska is my home and was my home before I ever even came here. I am an Alaskan, born into exile in the state of Utah. I am an Alaskan now and I was Alaskan then. Just the thought of living anywhere else damn near kills me. 

A little bit of time in Arizona each winter will be fine - if we can figure out how to afford it. 

And then what about Margie? She has given me nearly 28 year of her life in this place, where she freezes every winter and pines for her Native southwest. Don't I owe her something for that?

But to give up Alaska?

She likes it here in the summer and says that it is fine with her if we spend our summers here. She didn't much care for this past summer, though. It was a cold summer, and it rained and rained and rained and the rain was cold.

When a Mat-Su summer turns out nice, however, it is the sweetest summer in the world. No other place that I have been can produce such a sweet summer as does this valley. Even my Arizona girl agrees on this.

We stepped out of IHOP to find two dogs in a truck. I wonder who this pitbull voted for? And how did the dog get away with it? It's against the law for dogs to vote in Alaska. And why did the pitbull vote today? The election was not today. It was November 4.

Does this pitbull sometimes wear lipstick? I don't see any on it right now.

The pitbull wanted to kill me, but I bravely stood there and photographed it with my trusty G10 pocket camera. 

The Insurance Adjuster - Joey Seibet. Okay, I must back up to last week, just before New Year's, when the insurance adjuster for Progressive came over. We are insured with State Farm, but the cops cited the poor kid who rear-ended our Taurus with his GMC truck and they didn't cite me, so Progressive had to pick up the damages.

I was wary at first, expecting a battle. I guess in part because it is my health insurance that I have been dealing the most lately, due primarily to my accident in June and that company is a horrible organization. It makes promises when you sign on and then when the time comes, gives your case to a person who gets paid very well to sit in an office to find ways to allow his company to break those promises and to make you pay, even when you can't pay.

So I was expecting a battle, but Mr. Seibert proved easy to work with and he seemed to care.

Sadly for us, our nine year-old Taurus had almost 200,000 miles of Alaska driving on it and so its market value was many thousands of dollars less than what it would have cost to repair the damages. When that happens, they total a car out at its market value and give you a check for that amount, then they take the car and sell it to the junk man.

So we got $2,833 for our old Taurus. Enough for a down payment on a new car.

Now we are engaged in the miserable process of shopping for a replacement. I hate it. And when we are done, we will be saddled with monthly car payments, something that we have not had to face for several years. And, even with 200,000 miles on it, Alaskan miles, we had babied the Taurus engine and it was running smooth and sounded fine.

So, you see, even when the insurance adjuster is a fair person, you can still come out in a much worse spot than you were in before his client smacked you in the rear.

As for Mr. Seibert, he says that being an insurance adjuster around here right now is like "trying to take a drink of water from a fire-hydrant." That's because people are continually crashing on our icy roads. Alaskans like to deride Lower 48 drivers whenever they see them sliding around on the news after a snowstorm, but the fact is, Alaskans are forever sliding off the road and crashing into things.

Mr. Seibert says that he feels good when he is able to help a family out, but sad when he can see that the insurance company's liability falls short of their needs, especially when there are small children involved and people who have been hurt.

He does not deal with fatalities or injuries that involve broken bones. These go to someone else.

While he did not mind being photographed, Mr. Siebert expressed a worry that I would freeze, given that the temperature was close to 20 below, F. Ha! Me - a genuine Arctic photographer - and look at him, how he is dressed!

And he's taking pictures, too!