Freyne Land

Was supposed to fly home to Vermont on Sunday, but if you haven't heard, there's been a bit of a blizzard down here in New Mexico and I haven't been able to get out. At present, I'm booked on a Thursday morning United flight through Denver and Chicago - fingers crossed, eh?

But, I've been stuck since Saturday at the El Rey Inn (www.elreyinnsantafe.com), here in Santa Fe (fortunately with a friend). However, my BUDGET rent-a-car remains stuck in over two-feet of the white stuff back on the private dirt road by my sister's place south of town. Got to drive it for all of three days on a seven-day lease. The Express Tow Truck driver who works for Budget just called to say he can't get it out since the road's unplowed. Even if he had 4-wheel-drive, Ol' Chris says he couldn't get it out.

New Mexico's an official disaster area around and the temperatures remain frigid - like Vermont ought to be.

Anyway, we're about to find out just how much BUDGET believes in customer service. After being closed for the weekend, the local Santa Fe BUDGET manager is due in at noon. "Darcy," the BUDGET ROADSIDE SERVICE rep in Denver, says the BUDGET policy is to not issue a replacement vehicle until the old one has been returned. But, as we mentioned, the old one's buried in the blizzard and the tow-driver says he can't get it out until the road's been plowed. The reality is there aren't many snow plows in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Great.

Of course, we did check BUDGET's policy online here in the El Rey lobby:

"We provide consistent and dependable service that exceeds expectations and creates loyal customers."

Guess we'll see if that's actually for real or just a bunch of advertising propaganda when "Kristin" the local BUDGET manager arrives at work at noon today.

Stay tuned, folks.

Starting to miss Vermont awful bad!

P.S. The current weather conditions down here on the Mexican border - deep snow and single-digit temps - compared to the weather conditions up north, have a lot of folks around here uttering the phrase "global warming."

Bunch of left-wing hooey, eh?