I’ve never seen anything like that

A little over a week ago our car fell apart. When I went out to the garage in the morning to drive to my pottery class, the front bumper was resting on the floor. Although not a complete surprise, I had not taken seriously the subtle warning that something could be wrong. Rewind to a year ago when we bought the car from CarMax despite indications on a CarFax report that it had been in a fender bender at some point in its first months of existence. A few months ago I noticed that there was some separation between panels down low on the front of the car. Similar to a little slip showing under a skirt, it was something I planned to have the dealer check out at our upcoming scheduled appointment. Tuesday evening, when leaving game night, the front of the car scraped against a parking bumper as I pulled out of the space. We didn’t drive anywhere Wednesday. Thursday morning, the car was undrivable. If I had a child who took the car out on Tuesday night and tried to convince me that the car was fine when she parked it, I wouldn’t have believed her. I’ve never seen a bumper just fall apart like that.

Audi roadside assistance towed the car to the dealership in Albuquerque, where it has been for a little over a week. Since our bumper repair is going to take a couple more weeks, the Audi dealership found a loaner for us. We are fortunate to have the “Railrunner” service, a train that connects Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Yesterday shortly after learning that a loaner was available, we boarded the 1:02 southbound train at the Santa Fe Depot. The train goes faster than traffic when it’s moving, but it stops multiple times between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Whereas the trip takes an hour by car, it was about 75 minutes by Railrunner. Still, it’s nice to have someone else do the driving and I expect to take the train again, even if it doesn’t have a convenient connection to the airport. Someone from the dealership picked us up at the station and soon we were on our way back to Santa Fe in the loaner vehicle. 

High points on the road back gave us good views of a storm ahead of us, also traveling northeast. We caught up to it just south of town. Arriving home, we found an unusual rainbow moving up the side of the mountain. 

I’ve never seen anything like it.