Petersburg

by

Update on the Repairs to Miranda

I just called to find out how the repairs on Miranda are going. She is being serviced by W.S. Campbell in Petersburg, VA.

I expected to leave a message for my mechanic and was surprised and pleased that the lady who answered had a full status update for me and could answer all my questions. I have never in all my years of owning a vehicle had that happen when I call a repair shop!

The shop has all the parts, but the work is being held up by the welder. He is hoping to be there this afternoon or first thing in the morning, but it could be as late as Monday. But once that’s done, the repairs won’t take any time at all. There is no reason I couldn’t be on the way back to Canada by Wednesday morning.

The appraiser did come by and take a look before the work started, but there is no more information about that. I’m expecting to hear back from my adjuster at Aviva at some point. I just emailed her to ask for an update.

Even though the hotel is paid for tonight, I will be checking out sometime after dinner. I need to be in Richmond for 11 tomorrow morning, so it makes sense to do the bulk of the drive tonight, check up on the cats, who must be traumatized by the repair work, and sleep in my own bed. I still feel that it made sense to have the hotel booked for tonight since that lets me use it all day today. I should be on the road most of tomorrow since I won’t be able to be home if work is being done on Miranda. I can stay home over the weekend and then go back to the hotel next week for a few days if necessary.

My friend is super contagious right now, so all our plans have fallen through. 🙁 I think it’s karma for all the times in the past that I told her I was coming to visit and had to cancel! I’m grateful we had two evenings together and I still think the detour was worthwhile, but we’re both extremely disappointed. Hopefully, she’ll be well enough in a few days for us to see each other one more time before I head north.

I’m hoping to be able to do a few touristy things over the weekend since I’ll still have the car. In case anyone is wondering how my time is being spent this week, let me just say that I have a right to make sure my business is running smoothly while I am on vacation, and let’s leave it at that. 🙂 I really can’t be out gallivanting anyway, not with the number of times the phone has been ringing a day and the huge repair bill that is looming.

by

A Trifecta of Oceanic Proportions

Now that my RV has brought me back to the wild and grey Atlantic that I love so much, I feel that I have truly come full circle.

I haven’t been able to go anywhere this week, glued as I am to my phone and a couple of projects, so I was starting to fear that I wouldn’t get to the Atlantic on this trip. I pulled up Google maps, ran a few calculations, and decided that Lighthouse Drive in Hampton was pretty much on the ocean. It’s probably still technically on Chesapeake Bay, but, really, where does an ocean start and end?

oceanshmocean

IMGP3481

IMGP3482

IMGP3483
For nostalgia’s sake, here I am in the Pacific Ocean during this great big adventure of mine:

And here I am again, frolicking in the Arctic Ocean:

Now, I just need to get to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico!

by

Managed to Reach BMO

I dug through my computer and found enough to call BMO this afternoon. Friday just felt too far away. The first number I tried was the wrong one, but the helpful lady gave me the correct number.

The correct number was answered by an English-speaking computer. WHAT?! I’m not used to dealing with this stuff in English, so I pressed two for French and got an Anglo with a really thick accent. HUH?! It has always been my experience that Anglos are lucky to get a French person who can muddle by in English with an almost incomprehensible accent when they call anything that’s remotely official in Quebec.

But I digress.

I didn’t have my loan account number, but I was found through my name (it helps to be the only person on the planet with your name) and then I breezed through the security questions.

The loan balance was just about where I expected it to be, $4,200. I have a payment over the weekend which may affect the balance unless BMO does a stop payment once they’ve heard from the insurance company. I don’t mind if that payment goes through because it will eventually come back to me, but it would be nice if it doesn’t.

Before we got down to the business, the guy told me he was sorry to hear about the accident and was I okay? Yes, thank you, but I’m pissed off that my nearly paid off car is totaled. He gave me the balance and said he hoped that the insurance payout would cover it. “Yup. And I’ll still have more than $7,000 in my pocket by the time the moron’s insurance pays me back my deductible.” His reply was, “How did you pull that off?!” Apparently, they get a lot of people who have their car totaled and the insurance payment doesn’t cover the loan. It would suck to have to make payments on a car that’s been totaled!

So, now I just have to wait for my total loss adjuster to contact BMO because that’s how BMO wants things done. At least, I’m two days ahead of where I thought I’d be after I hung up with her.

Intact has been absolutely stellar. Big thumbs up!

by

Call From the Total Loss Claim Adjuster

The total loss claim adjuster for Intact just called me to confirm the amount that I will be getting for the car (I ignored the number; it was huge, even without my deductible, and I don’t want to get excited until I get confirmation on how much is left on the car loan). She wanted to send me a cheque with BMO as a co-signor, but I found that way too messy and it would mean I wouldn’t be getting paid till I got back to Quebec and able to get to a BMO.

Instead, I will call BMO Friday morning to get a statement of my account sent to the Intact adjuster so that she can pay the loan out directly. Friday because I’m staying at the hotel again tonight and don’t have access to any of that paperwork, dangnabit.

Once the total loss claim adjuster gets the statement, she will send me some paperwork that I will have to somehow print out, sign, then have witnessed, and get it back to her. After that, she will arrange for direct deposit or a cheque to be made out to me for the balance. I really don’t see myself getting the payout before I get to Quebec, but this does seem easier than going the co-party cheque route.

She finished with a bit of great news: they are paying for the car until the 14th! I think that means that if I keep it on the 14th, then I have to pay for that day. So I may end up paying for the car for a couple of days next week, but I’d be looking at less than $60 for a rental when I had thought it would be closer to $250! Bureaucratic red tape has worked in my favour!

by

Grateful For My Little Pink Phone

I’ve never never had much use for phones, except when they act as a modem to get on the internet. I’ve been very lackadaisical about keeping an active cell phone unless I have a very specific reason for needing it on (eg. my PR person at the RV show needed to be able to keep in touch with me). I lived most of my life without 24/7 access to a phone and I just don’t rely on the technology that much. When I’ve needed a phone in an emergency, it was just a matter of minutes to get it reactivated. I don’t remember missing access to a phone when I was traveling through the US last year.

On this trip, I wanted to have internet access, so I was very grateful that Donna gave me her LG phone that can be tethered to your computer and act as a cellular modem:

I was irked that I had to buy a voice plan so that I could get the data plan, but jumped through the hoops and got the smallest phone plan, 450 nationwide minutes. A few days later, I decided to pay the extra $20 and get the nationwide+Canada plan. This means that I can make calls to anywhere in the US, Puerto Rico, and Canada, and receive calls from anywhere in these locations, without being billed beyond my monthly amount as long as I don’t use up more than 450 minutes.

Needless to say, I have been very grateful for my phone since the accident! I haven’t had to worry about being able to reach people or to be reached. I do only have about 120 minutes left, but at least I will have used up all my minutes, making the expense worthwhile.

I did find it fussy for going online, but suspected the cable was bad. I spent all of $2.50 on Amazon for a genuine LG cable with a cell phone port at one and and a USB port at the other and, voila!, problem solved.

This phone has a touch screen and QWERTY keypad (the phone opens up like a book to reveal the keyboard), which is useful for texting, although I have to pay for each text (it was $10 to add a texting plan). I will confess that I have used the phone to check my email and to do internet research! The phone also has a pretty decent little camera.

I love my easy-to-remember North Dakota number and am thinking about keeping the voice plan active when I get back to Canada, although I will be turning off the data plan to avoid incurring huge charges. I am amused that I am considering keeping a $70 cell phone plan active when I’ve resented paying the $17 minimum fee to keep my Virgin mobile phone active. I think that part of it is that I will be able to use this phone everywhere I travel and that I’d need it active anyway in the US to get the data plan. Might as well keep it going all the time.

Verizon seems like an okay company to deal with, but they are a little clingy. I just made a payment online using my credit card and I immediately got both a text and an email thanking me! I won’t even get into the mountain of paperwork they sent me thanking me for signing up, for changing my plan, for switching to paperless billing (as my friend says, oh, irony, it burns!). Hopefully, that will calm down a little.