I like to be in America...

 

OK by me in America.

Everything's free in America,

For a small fee in America.

If you said, "Leonard Bernstein, from the 1957 Broadway musical and the 1961 film West Side Story," you get 50 bonus points.  When I was in the Flippers, we did a West Side Story set; always got a good reaction.

Out for my morning bicycle ride this morning, the sun was out for a short time...

 Humid and overcast by the time I got back to our house.

This morning, I called the body shop in Brownsville where I had stopped last week to inquire about getting a sunroof.  After talking with Progressive this weekend, apparently we need to get a written estimate on the damage... even though they did send out a dumbass independent adjuster to look at (and photograph) the damage.  They found the photos in our claim file, but seem unable to figure out the damage from those photos.  But, I digress.

When I called the body shop, the person answering the phone did not speak English.  She handed the phone to another guy who spoke very broken English.  Between my broken Spanish and his broken English, we managed to communicate that I need to speak with Kevin (the guy who came out to look at our car last week).

"Kevin not here.  He be here in half hour.  (the time was 8:40)  Maybe an hour.  Maybe like 10:30."

And that's the way things get done on the "edge of America."

--------

My buddy Kevin called me back.  We set up a 10:30 time for me to come to Brownsville and have them do an estimate.  I was there at 10:28.  Kevin wasn't.  I got turned over to Kevin's dad, who also spoke broken English.  He came out and took a half dozen or so photos of our car.  I pointed out a bunch of other stuff that he missed.  Just looking at the car, he wanted to send me to another place to get the work done.  We picked this place specifically because they use the same estimating software as Progressive.  I am pretty sure Kevin's dad is more concerned about repairing the CR-V as cheaply as possible, rather than getting a realistic estimate.

We drove by a couple car dealers (Chevy and Ford) to see if they had anything in inventory that might be towable behind a motorhome... OMG, they have almost nothing.  Well, for sure nothing that is towable.  But there was one vehicle for every 10 parking spots.  Looks bleak for finding something to replace the CR-V.  For now.