AAA Declared It Totalled

It took a while for the AAA people to believe that the damage on the car was done by the Santa Ana Winds. Impossible they said. That kind of damage would mean the winds had to be around 90mph. Ah, duh Yeah!!! It was around 50mph out of the sand storm.

In any case, it's a good thing we left half the desert in the car for proof. I told my dad not to clean it out so they would see. They saw! There was a couple of inches of sand, glass and little tiny sand pebbles that scratch at your skin. If you tried to pick any of it up by hand--you bleed. This was the stuff that swirled around Mom and Dad for two hours and they're still coughing it up. Dad finally got some rest today.

Back to the story of AAA and insurance dilemmas. After eight hours of trying to see if the car was drivable they decided to total that puppy (or Toyota mini van, if you will)--two windows missing, a caved-in door, sand in the interior including door panels, sand in the air conditioning vents, sand in the radio and CD player, sand in the steering wheel (which could not turn) and finally sand in the engine, radiator and everything else that we used to call a car.

Final total damage--$10,000 plus change. So around 5:00 PM Dad drives up in a new car. Swweeeettttt!