Bay to Breakers-or the most expensive vacation ever

Bay to Breakers was by the most stressful vacation I have ever been on. I loved the walking through people, the party that happened on Saturday night. However the events from Friday make it one of the worst vacations ever. On Friday, bright and early (as possible with two slow pokes), Nick and I set off for San Francisco. I had warned Nick ahead of time that I might sleep through the entire trip up North. About 100 miles in, with me chatting away he finally turns to me and says, "Honey I love you, but I thought you were going to sleep?" I responded with a smile, sounds like the perfect time to do so. :) We stopped in Livermore to see a friend of mine, had an ok late lunch early dinner. As we were leaving Livermore, Nick and I noticed one of the tires was making an odd sound when Nick applied the brakes. I tried to make him pull over, however he was sure the car could wait until we got to the hotel- he would fix the problem there. Just as we were about to hit the Bay Bridge, we heard a thump, screeching and saw a tire flying down the side of the highway. The tire was our tire and we were officially driving on the rotor. *sigh* We were able to safely pull over to the side of the road, and a couple of people stopped, got out and made sure we were ok. Would not leave until we confirmed we had workable cell phones, and AAA. We assured them we would be ok. I contacted AAA, but because I was not "in my usual territory" I needed to be transferred. I tried to the best of my ability to describe to the AAA person where we were, and what we needed. However 3 hours later, the FOURTH tow truck that comes along is the one that tows us to a Toyota dealership. The first Toyota dealership was closed, on accounting the accident had happened at 6:30pm the tow truck did not even get the car onto the truck until closer to 10pm. So of course I tell him to go ahead and take us to a different Toyota dealership. The second one was not open, however did have space and a key drop box so that we could leave the car at that location. By this point it is around 11:30, and I am officially exhausted. We beg a friend of a friend to come and get us from Oakland. We could have taken the Bart into San Francisco, and then taken the underground, however I just wanted to get to our hostel. A long time later, we checked into our hostel and put our stuff in our room. We were sharing the space with two guys from England. Nick decided he suddenly was not tired, so we went out to get some booze. A day such as ours requires some serious drowning of alcohol. The next day and a call to the insurance company and a call to the Toyota dealership, we go back out to Oakland and take everything out of the car with all of his personal information on it. The insurance company said they would not cover the expenses because there was not accident. Toyota told him the damages were about $4,500. Nick loves his car, as do I. It is the first new car he has ever purchased and paid off. Needless to say, Nick was quite heartbroken to hear the car might not be fixable. After sitting on the information from the dealership and the insurance company for about 2 weeks, as well as doing research, Nick finally calls the insurance company back. They apologized profusely for the earlier agent's actions of not covering the damages on the car. They further more authorized all work to be done on the car, and told Nick he just had to pay his deductible, about $500. The funny part? Nick goes back up to Oakland to retrieve his car, he is fully prepared to sign over his deductible to the Toyota dealership-per his insurance company, but he does not need to. Apparently the Toyota dealership performed more work on the car than what the insurance company authorized, so it voided Nick's deducible. Nick was able to walk away from the Toyota dealership with his car and checkbook intact. Lucky duck, right?