Our minivan broke down!

We were out and about a couple of weekends ago when our minivan broke down!  There was no real warning as to the van having an issue.  We had picked up a couple antique hanging lights from a lady in Long Beach (yes, which I really had to have :-P) and then we decided to drive to Long Beach Airport as there is a place near there to grab lunch.  Well, we obviously never made it to the place for lunch!

Here are my lights... still figuring out where to hang them :-P

Bobby and the boys ended up walking across the street to pick up sandwiches for lunch:

I suppose we should we thankful we were just on the surface street when everything went out.  At first, the radio went out and then the car started beeping at us - sort of that same emergency beep that you hear over the TV or radio.  There were then messages about the airbags being disabled and some other electronics in the van disabled as well.  We ended up pulling the minivan into a parking lot and parked in a handicap parking spot.  We were hoping to be able to restart the car and obviously it didn't:

One of the employees from the tire shop came by to look at our car but we eventually did have to get it towed.  Even the car keys/fob was stuck in the ignition!  And thankfully the tow-truck guy mentioned something about putting the car into neutral manually.  We didn't know that was possible without having the car on, so definitely learned something new there!

Thankfully there were 3 men hanging around waiting for their tires to get replaced. So they helped out with pushing the car out of the parking spot, while I was in the car trying to steer the minivan.  Having to steer the car with no power steering definitely brought back memories of my parent's old car while growing up in Malaysia!

Oops... we forgot to take the carseats out of the minivan!  Since the tow-truck could only seat 2 people, the boys and I stayed behind and I told Bobby that we would just hire a car to drive us home.  Not without the carseat, so we are stuck until Bobby comes and get us in his hired car!

Thankfully Graham brought a toy to play with:

And this is probably the only time I will allow "Bottle Tossing".  It really does drive me nuts!

And what a coincidence that I actually caught Graham making the perfect toss!!! :-)

Meanwhile... Bobby has arrived at the VW dealership.  Thankfully it was only about 2-3 miles away from where we were stranded.  The people at VW actually had the tow-truck take it to the back by the carwash.  I guess they were embarrassed and didn't want anyone seeing a VW vehicle on tow:

Thankfully we didn't have to wait to long for Bobby to get us.  I think it was probably an hour or so later, we are finally in the rented car.  The whole plan for the day was to get lunch and then drive over the new bridge in Long Beach.  Here it is - the Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge:

I was curious why it was called a replacement, but here it is in the next photo... the original Gerald Desmond Bridge.  Look how much lower it is compared to the new bridge!

The old bridge was opened in 1968 and honored Desmond, who was a prominent figure in Long Beach.  He was the City Attorney, among other positions that he had held throughout his short life of 48 years old.

Here's another look from the back of the car.  Don't know why but I just love bridges and love taking photos of them:

I didn't realized how long this project had been going on.  It was first conceived a month after 9/11.  So after 19 long years, this new bridge is now able to let six-stacked shipping container ships to go by and also serves as a vital route for commuters between downtown LA and Long Beach.

For some reason I thought they had gotten rid of this green bridge here - the Vincent Thomas bridge.  I don't like driving by this one so much.  It is so high and steep!

Well, that's it for our brief history lesson!  Hopefully we won't get so lost while driving in this area.  It has always been so messy with all the construction.  We haven't been to the Aquarium for a long time though, so there hasn't been any new "scenic route" episodes while trying to get to the Aquarium or get home.

The minivan was checked in that Saturday (10/10) and wouldn't get diagnosed until the following Monday.  It was suppose to take a whole week to install the new alternator and new battery but thankfully it got done early!  So Bobby went to pick it up last week on Thursday.  Although we really didn't need the car for anything.  There are a couple of supermarkets within walking distance and also plenty of stores - so having this house so close to businesses is a blessing! It is also good exercise for Bobby :-D

It did seem nice not having a car in the driveway, so in a way we could pretend for a few days how it would actually feel like to have a car parked in the garage.  Ha ha!  Hopefully no more big expenses after this since we also just paid for our new AC installation!