**WARNING- VERY LONG APPRECIATION POST**
Tuesday night we left for Florida around 7:30 pm. At around 11:30 pm our transmission went out about 2 miles from the Beckley, WV exit. It was raining and it was not a good spot for it to happen since there was only a 3 foot berm and then gravel that dropped off. It was also 500 feet from construction area with left lane closed so everyone was getting in right lane. So we had semis passing at 60 mph 4 feet from us
We called AAA and within 20 minutes David from Glen's Towing called and said he would be there in 5 minutes. AAA had told us Because of COVID nobody could ride in the tow truck so we amazingly found Ambassador Taxi after trying Lyft, Uber, and every other taxi company number with no answer. Ambassador said they would have to send the driver back to get a big SUV since we had 7 people and could be a little while since he was on way back from dropping railroad guys off in VA. When David arrived with the tow truck, he said "I'm going to just pull up behind you with my lights on and wait for the taxi to get here. Then you guys can just jump in taxi and I will bring van to your hotel for you to get your stuff out so you're not trying to do it on side of the road."
He sat behind us for an hour until Ambassador got there. While we were awaiting, the owner of Ambassador called and let me know that they had a shop and could look at the van first thing in the morning for us if we wanted to have it towed there. I also, used my Choice Hotels app and booked us rooms at the Comfort Inn in Beckley. Since it was after midnight the app booked them for the following night. So I called Comfort Inn and the front desk girl said she would get them changed no problem.
Ambassador arrived and we got into the Tahoe and he took us to the hotel. I walked in and the front desk immediately handed me the key cards and pointed me to our side by side rooms so I could get the kids in bed. 5 minutes later, David from Glen's towing arrived and completely dropped the van off the roll back for us to empty all of our luggage onto the hotel carts.
Once in our room around 2 am, I got on the Enterprise app and booked a minivan for pick up at 8 am when they opened. I got a call around 7:40 saying they didn't currently have any vehicles (From Austin working there I knew that was common first thing in morning) and they would call when they received some from Charleston hopefully by noon.
While waiting Ambassador auto called and said what I feared, transmission completely out. I told them I didn't want to put that kind of money into it and I had already booked a rental and asked if van was in the way or if I could come with trailer in 2 weeks to get van and she said "No problem. We will just park it around back."
At 10 am Enterprise called that they had a van. I called Beckley Green Cab and they were there in 10 minutes to take me to Enterprise. I walked in enterprise and was in a 2020 Caravan with only the 82 miles on it in less than 5 minutes and headed back to the hotel to continue our vacation. We left a Beckley at 11 am.
I can't say enough about how friendly and helpful everyone we dealt with was. Maybe it really is, Almost Heaven in West Virginia.
Thank you so much to everyone we dealt with:
Glen's Towing
Ambassador Taxi
Ambassador Auto
Comfort Inn - Beckley
Beckley Green Cab
Enterprise - Beckley (Canterbury) read more