Home again again.

More reflections coming up. I want to make sure I cover packing and activities and plans for future trips, but let’s return to accommodations for a moment. Last time I listed all the good hotels. Now it’s time for the losers.

Days Inn, which wouldn’t recognize its Veterans’ Discount. UPDATE: Days Inn Headquarters overruled Joanne and promised she would be counseled. They sent us a check. Good job!

Super 8, which wanted us to sign our lives away in case our dogs made noise, but wouldn’t control wild children and nasty parents. UPDATE: The manager there wrote us a letter full of excuses. Not good enough. They still stink.

Ramada Limited, where the physical plant was so decrepit I broke my arm. UPDATE: They refunded our entire stay. Chances are good I won't sue. I'm looking into it, but it may not even be worth the trouble. But I would never stay in one of those again!

Quality and Comfort Inn, where not one pool out of three was both clean and the right temperature. In each of these locations, the staff told one lie or another, and I only mentioned their worst problems here. Their other failings are detailed in earlier blogs, and on hotel review sites. No response from them. Bad hotels. Do not stay there. Last June, coincidentally, I stayed at one of these little complexes near the Philly airport. I don't know the area and needed to get in and out of South Jersey fast. It also stunk. It was a little group of the "Clarion/Sleep/Quality" places and they were just all terrible. Broken things, dirty places, rude, apathetic management. Avoid.

America’s Best Value Inn was in a category of its own. A mom and pop operation, we felt despite the problems, they were really trying to do their best. So we give them a pass. But please, a few hangers and a little cream cheese wouldn’t break the bank. I mean, just collect a few dry cleaning hangers. Or you can get twelve for a dollar at the Dollar Store. Just sayin’.

Also, here’s a word on restaurants. Most of them were good. Really. The food was good, the wait staff was decent. The only restaurant issue we really had was places where there was little or no choice around the hotel, such as Wall and Custer, and the ones that allowed smoking, which we left. The four bad restaurants in a row in Mankato had to be some sort of bizarre coincidence, and we didn’t actually eat in them, anyway. The only bad meals were delivery to our rooms. This is one thing we will try really hard to avoid. The exception to this: Jimmy John’s in the Midwest. Best damned subs ever. And in the Upper Midwest, if there’s game on the menu, and you can eat it, don’t miss it. It will be their specialty and it’s excellent.

Okay, now about attractions. It really depends what you like. We like history and animals and parks. Natural phenomena, primarily. Some of the kooky things in Wisconsin Dells were not the best, but they have their own charm. The best thing we did has to be the helicopter ride in the Black Hills, and all the close-up wildlife in the state and national parks. So do what makes you happy. The Harry Truman home made me happy, too. Many might find it a musty old house, and that’s all it is to them, whereas for me, it's a step back into another time. I love caves and Joyce, eh, not so much. So just do your homework, is my advice.

Packing is an interesting exercise. We had to pack for ourselves and three dogs for seven weeks. Dogs have a lot of gear. I think they had two bags, plus their cages and all the poop bags we collected for the last six months. We had to pack for when we would be doing our own cooking, and for when we might have a microwave and refrigerator, and for when we had none of the above. We had to pack for various anticipated activities, not all of which came to pass, but you never know. As senior citizens, we have a lot of medications, as well as first aid items. And we were going to be in a lot of climates, so that meant everything from bathing suits to lined jackets.

We have a 92 Toyota Previa, and while it has a big interior, it’s not an RV or anything. We fold the back seats up to make room for the cages, and the coolers go behind the front seat on the floor. The bags we will not use every day go further in and down. The ones we will need every night are closer to the doors. We both tried to pack for two or three days at a time so we could leave certain bags in the car. One of us was better at this than the other, who frequently packed extra items in the laundry bag. And then there are souvenirs and other miscellaneous items, like guns and ammo, which have to be locked up. Having made over 20 separate stops, we will make an even greater effort in the future to get all our personal stuff in one bag each, to leave the souvenirs in the van overnight as much as possible and so on. The little cooler is heavy, but it always has to go in, in case there’s no fridge. We managed also to eliminate dragging one cage. The two little dogs can share the plastic cage, and Nick gets a nice pillow in the bathroom when we’re out of the room.

Oh, that’s right! Travel with dogs. I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s a lot cheaper than boarding them, and a lot happier for us to have them along. We don’t doubt for a minute that they would rather have spent the seven weeks at home, but they would rather go with us than board. And they did have some fun, smelling bison poop and the like. Here, look at all the fun they had!











The worst is having to walk them at night in the rain. Joyce can manage them all at once, but I have to take them one at a time so I can see who goes, and what, and where. And then there’s the picking up. It simply has to be done, or pets and their people will become less welcome than they already are. If you are reading this, and you don’t pick up, you aren’t even doing yourselves a favor. If you can change a diaper, you can pick up poop. You don’t even have to touch it if you do it right. In fact, you shouldn’t touch it, but carry hand sanitizer because it will make you feel better. Carry enough of their own food, don’t overdo the treats, make sure they have familiar bedding and toys, and if you rent a cabin, bring old sheets to cover the furniture. Yes, you have to do all these things, or you’re a slob. And enough people ARE slobs, or we wouldn’t keep encountering bad attitudes about dogs.

Finally, the future. We already booked the next trip, but it’s not blogable. We often rent a house on St George Island up in the Panhandle, and we’re going there for ten days in December, coming home for the holidays. All we will do there is vegetate. It’s very quiet. Very few other people will be there. There will be long walks on the beach, kayaking, lunch at the Blue Parrot, jigsaw puzzles, old movies and napping.

As to next summer, we will either go to the Galapagos or take another road trip. We’re leaning toward the desert Southwest; out on I-10, back on I-20, no more than six weeks, with a stop in Kanab, Utah, at Dogtown. When we decide we’ll post it here.
Thanks for joining us on our trip. Now it’s your turn!

Reflections: strangers on a stranger journey.

There sure is a lot to reflect on here, maybe enough for two entries. I’ll just try to go in some sort of logical progression about things we learned, and things we would do differently, and where we might go next.

The most obvious things are stuff like route, time and accommodations. Although our route was boring on occasion, we (well, mostly I) selected it, and parts of it, for particular reasons. There were people or places we wanted to see, so we went there. What I learned about the upper and central Midwest is, except for certain individual locations, which may be very spread out, there’s not a lot to see or do of the kinds of things we like. We did the Ingalls-Wilder stops because we were up that way anyhow. I doubt I would make that sort of trip again because now we have seen it and now we know. We’re really glad we saw the thirteen states we went through, because we just hadn’t seen some of them at all, and now we have, and we wanted to know what was out there. Joyce has five states left to see, which will largely determine where we go next.

We certainly did the right thing by avoiding cities. We only went into Memphis and Chattanooga, and Memphis wasn’t worth it. We are not interested in “nightlife” or “entertainment” or drinking ourselves into oblivion. We hate traffic, noise, dirt and crowds. These things don’t excite us a bit. Except for airports and necessary evils like finding the VA, I doubt we’ll ever deliberately tour a city again, at least, not in North America. Europe is an entirely different story, but it is so easy to travel there, we will probably delay returning there until our late 70s, because anyone can do Europe. We’ll save what’s left of our youth and strength for the more adventurous kinds of travel we prefer at the moment.

As to the time spent, seven weeks is too much, at least of that type of travel. We’ve decided to limit ourselves to six next time, and see how that goes. A lot of the strain of travel had to do with accommodations, and now we have learned a lot more about those. You know, we’ve been traveling for decades, but that doesn’t mean we know it all, because many things have changed in recent years that make road tripping harder than it used to be, and one of them is mean people. So we now know some things to do to avoid them.

Regarding accommodations, we would pay more for a better quality of service. We would scrupulously avoid certain chains, and deliberately seek out others. We wanted to use La Quinta as exclusively as possible, but they aren’t in all the places we wanted to be. So we learned which chains to avoid, and which are a suitable substitute. The best for traveling with animals is La Quinta. Americinn is the most quiet and probably the most attractive. Holiday Inn Express is the most luxurious. And Belmont is second in all categories. We’re sending them all letters of appreciation with a few suggestions on how to become ideal.

That’s enough for one entry. Watch for another one soon.

Choo-chooing along to Chattanooga

So finally, either a day late or two days early, we set off for Chattanooga. Although, as I said, we had no internet at the Big Crappie, I was able to get a cell phone signal, so we got our subsequent reservations changed to accommodate our new situation.

Again, from the Kentucky border to Chattanooga isn’t that far, but there are a lot of route changes, and again, Joyce drove while I navigated. Driving out of Kentucky into Tennessee we went through some really beautiful scenery, and we were sorry we hadn’t been able to see more of it. So we will go back, but this time, from the Tennessee side. Only got a little lost in Clarksville, and then decided as long as it was on the way, we’d stop at the Murfreesboro VA hospital.

But the fates had other ideas. We followed the one sign we saw to get off the interstate and then there weren’t any more. And we asked directions several times, and either they had no idea or sent us off on a wild goose chase. I have no idea if we ever got anywhere near it or not, but after an hour, we were sick of it and decided to try the VA in Chattanooga when we got there.

Joyce was right about that long steep hill, and it really unnerved her, and I couldn’t drive. Last time she drove it was in an ice storm, so this was a little better. A lot of trucks, but it was clear and hot. Boy, was it hot! A huge change in temperatures once we got out of Illinois, and it stayed hot all the way home. And all the way to Chattanooga, the scenery was just fantastic, and reminded us why we wish we lived in Tennessee. Who knows, maybe someday, if the housing market ever recovers.

Crossed back into Eastern time just before Chattanooga, so we lost an hour, but easily found the hotel. And holy Toledo, what a dump! But as I said below, if it’s a day or two, you’re inclined to endure it, and anyway, it wasn’t so bad on the surface, at least to start. As Joyce registered, I could see the pool and kids were in it, but it looked pretty good to me all the same. We were burning up.
Skedaddled off to our room to unpack and change and went to the pool. Kids gone, pool hot. Moreover, pool dirty, like they don’t clean their filters. They also had an indoor pool, but it was down for maintenance. When we complained, they sent us next door to the “Comfort” Inn, which also had an indoor pool and reciprocal privileges. We went there. Pool hot! Spa cold! We sat in the spa. At least it was clean.

When we left, we told the desk people perhaps they had their temperature controls reversed. We saw that once before, a hot pool and a cold spa, in Tifton, Georgia. So they said they would fix it, and went to change and eat. We were in there for two nights to allow me time at the VA, and we figured we’d check it out again the next day.

And that was pretty much our day. Oh, except the wifi didn’t work and I had to use the hotel’s computer station to catch up, and that’s how I discovered the lobby was full of flies. We wondered why that was, but we found out the next day. And so will you!

A note on cabin rentals

We have found two categories of places that take pets, and, as the old joke goes, one is swell and the other is lousy.

We have been spoiled by places like Collins Rentals on St George Island, where the rental homes are immaculate.

http://www.sgirentals.com/index.cfm

Likewise Bend of the River Cabins in Georgia. Pets are allowed in a good number of units and they sparkle.

http://www.bendoftheriver.net/

As far as chains go, we are sold on La Quinta. 99% of their properties allow pets. (I counted!) and they are sparkling clean and good quality. Holiday Inn Express, Belmont and Americinn are all good quality when they allow pets, but not all of them do. Depending on the location, they may also have absurd restrictions like, the dogs can’t be left in the room, so you can’t go out.

Then there is the flip side of the coin. They allow pets, and they’re dives: Super/“Stupor” 8, “Quality” Inn, “Comfort” Inn, Days/“Daze” Inn, Ramada Limited. These are all very poorly maintained and managed. In addition to being noisy, they are often dirty. They have bugs, wet paint, slimy pools and dirty breakfast areas. The staff is poorly-trained and/or indifferent. And it’s all a crapshoot. I know there are hotel review sites, but I checked the one for one Super 8 and everyone loved it. It was a hellhole. And you can look at pictures, but they won’t show dirt or bad attitudes.

Even when you arrive in a dive, and you know it, you are usually too tired to start hunting for someplace else, and if it’s only a night, you tolerate it and complain in person and on-line, but that’s not fun. This is why I want to contact the good chains I mentioned above with my list of requirements for the ideal, pet-loving motel. They all have a lot of the things we want already. Just a couple of tweaks and they could gather ALL the pet family business and wipe the others out.

Finally, the issue of rental cabins. Many of these are mom and pop enterprises and it’s an extremely tiring business. Think of your own house and multiply by ten or so. All these people are in your face for their needs, and they mess it up, and they break things. The weather doesn’t always cooperate. Your hired staff, if any, are not necessarily rocket scientists or ethics professors. If you can’t personally clean every unit, there will be problems. You don’t always make enough money to fix or replace everything, and you have to make choices. So you add on new decks and let the raggedy towels go till next year, when, of course, the water heaters explode.

Bottom line: just clean them, and a cracked plate or torn window shade won’t bother me. But then the whole thing is run down and dirty, I won’t be back, and I’ll tell my friends.

The Swimming Pool Wars

After spending the whole day cooped up in our room, we thought a swim would be in order. The pool is open from the crack of dawn until 10 PM, and we hoped the kids would finally get out of it and go to bed so we could swim in peace. We don’t care if kids are just in there, swimming and playing, but we keep our glasses on to swim, and we don’t want to be splashed in the face. Previously, we just asked the kids to be careful, and it worked. Not this time.

In fact, the whole hotel experience at the Super 8 in Custer, SD was so horrible that I don’t even want to describe it again, so I’m going to just reproduce some things I’ve already written. The first is the complaint I will be sending Super 8 motels and hotels.com as soon as I have a good internet connection and the time and energy to do it. The second and third are posts to one of my on-line groups, We Kid You Not, which is for people who are child-free and loving every minute.

To Super 8 management:

We booked months early, asking for ground floor because of our pets. When we arrived, we had to BEG for a ground floor room. Keep track of your reservation records and requests.

When we arrived, we asked for a refrigerator, and were told we were supposed to have reserved one when we reserved the room. Excuse me! How were we supposed to know that? How, on hotels.com, were we supposed to do it? You weren't prepared to provide the room we DID ask for in advance. Be nice. Have enough refrigerators for each room. Problem solved.

Breakfast isn't available late enough. We bet most people using hotels in the Mount Rushmore area are on vacation. We don't want to, or have to, get up early. At least have late hours on weekends and holidays.

There's no local restaurant information available in each room. You have to go to the desk and get the book, then bring it back. Moreover, it's incomplete. We found more on our own. Update and make copies.

No luggage carts. Get some.

No elevator. Install a luggage dumbwaiter while you get permission to install an elevator.

Miniature trash cans. So small, we emptied them twice a day ourselves. So move on up to a more realistic size.

Not enough shelves, hooks or closet space. Get the iron/ironing boards OUT. Make them available on request, and use the space for storage.

The nerve of demanding we sign to pay $100 if anyone complains about our dogs, yet no one is fined for slamming their doors, letting kids run wild in the rooms, or shrieking in the halls, or horseplaying in the pool area. I want $100 for every screaming kid and slamming door.

The door slamming is especially outrageous. There are many ways to keep people from being inconsiderate boors. Tell them not to. Put little brass/plastic stick-on signs on the doors (at eye-level) reminding guests to close doors gently. Demand they agree to pay $100 for each slam of their door. Install slow-closing hinges.

The halls stink of smoke. Move the outside ashtrays far away from the doors so non-smokers don't have to walk past them and through clouds of smoke. Confine smokers to one wing.

A band of small children occupied the pool for about six hours, non-stop. We finally went in because we wanted to relax, and got into an argument with a laissez-faire parent who suggested we leave if we didn't want to be splashed in the face while wearing glasses. We saw adult swimming hours posted at another pool we visited on this trip. Why don't you give adults the same consideration? UPDATE: We finally got these after continuous complaints to the local management.

We can't leave our dogs "alone" in the room even confined to crates and wearing bark collars. How are we supposed to eat? Sightsee? Shop? This is a vacation. We want to do things together.

There's no decent area to walk dogs. Put in some grass. You have more than enough rocks.

If you don't want to accommodate people with pets, fine; just say so. At this point, you are NOT dog-friendly. You aren't even really people-friendly.

In defense of the staff, they were pretty darned nice when we asked for things. They provided a refrigerator. They moved a late arrival upstairs and put us on the ground floor. They took our side and handled the parents of the badly-behaved children. But your rules and procedures run from useless to barbaric. You don't threaten guests and reprimand them for their "failures" to know what you expect in advance. Send some of your staff to the La Quinta School of Hospitality, please! They know what "dog-friendly" really means.

One last thought: to be fair, the uncivilized behavior of your guests is not your fault. They should know how to act. But our considerable experience demonstrates they probably will be selfish, clueless and downright mean. So if you take some precautions, such as slow-closing hinges, smoker-only areas and adult swims, you can cut down on some of the friction. Yes, it IS a holiday weekend, and it IS a tourist area. But it is everyone's vacation, and we are all tourists. You expect us to make our dogs behave, and rightfully so. No one wants a hotel full of howling, pooping canines. But no one wants a hotel full of uncontrollable brats and indifferent parents, either. ADDED: This, we discovered, was not just about us. A group of elderly people we met in the spa before attempting the pool complained to us that they hadn’t been able to get in the pool all day. But they didn’t confront anyone, and we will. And we will not stop until we get what we paid for.

Posted on We Kid You Not:

I'm resurrecting this thread near Mount Rushmore. Yeah, it's a holiday, but it's a holiday for everyone, not just the seven little boys who have been hogging the pool since three PM. It's now just after 10. We went in at nine after hoping all evening they'd be gone, because we'd already had a run-in with some of them slamming doors and screaming in the hall. But the pool closes at ten, so we finally went at nine. First we got in the hot tub, where three senior citizens were already relaxing. We chatted a while, and then I asked how the pool was, temperature wise, if they'd been in yet. One woman said they hadn't been able to because of the kids. I said, "Just go in and they'll move." I know this because we make them give us some space. We point to our glasses and say, "Don't splash us." But the woman declined. After a while, though, we wanted to go in ourselves. We did the same routine, and one kid told us to take them off. I said, "I like to be able to see, so don't splash me." Sure enough two minutes later, one of them did, and I asked both him and his parents to prevent it. At this, the mother said, I should get out of the pool. I said, "What, is this your private pool? I just got here. You've been here for hours." She suggested again that I leave. So I did. I went to the front desk and cited the rules they were breaking, and they went out of the pool.

Arrogant, selfish breeders and their absurd sense of entitlement. I told them at the desk the next time I wanted to use the pool, this wasn't going to happen again. BJ was very upset and didn't want to "make trouble" (she thinks everyone wants to kill our dogs in revenge) but I won't tolerate that crap. We are all on vacation and all have a right to use all the facilities. We didn't ask anyone to leave so we could swim, we only wanted to share.

I decided don't just hate kids; I hate their benighted, soulless moronic parents as well. Not just for making it difficult to have some fun, but for upsetting my spouse.

Oh, and this is the hotel where we had to agree to pay $100 if anyone complained about our dogs making noise. They don't make noise. We trained them not to, and that's why we can travel with them.

Finally, the resolution, so far, at least. I will be posting reviews on Hotels.co, too.

Well, I have some great news! After the second swimming pool war, I went to the front desk and said, basically, "Adult swimming hours or else." I mean, I was nice, and I was sympathetic to their plight (breeders are crazy) but said, "We are paying. We want to swim." And the very next morning, the sign went up. We get the last swimming hour child-free, and it's been great!

PS: I know some parents and child-lovers may well take offense. However, please keep in mind that these events are indicative to us of a huge problem. People don't know or care how to raise kids as far as we have seen. If parents want kids to have a better reputation, start early and train them right. You are not their best friends; you are their parents. Do you want to teach them how to act, or let the prison systems do it? Set rules, enforce them consistently. Watch Supernanny, and do what she says. Unless and until they can control themselves in public, or you can control them, leave them home. If you are already a decent, responsible parent, thank you. We need good examples.

Hotels and motels and restaurants and things

So I'm reading McCullough's biography of Harry Truman, and in it there's this joke meant to exemplify the typical small-town Missouri politician around the turn of the previous century. I think it's hilarious, and Joyce hates it.

This small-time politician wangles an invitation to a big East Coast political convention, which includes a formal banquet. So he sits at this table full of unfamiliar silverware, all dressed up, watching the others to see what to do. The waiter brings out celery, and he eats that. Next, the waiter brings out consomme, and like the people around him, the man from Missouri consumes that as well. The next course is a lobster, and the waiter places this in front of the man.

At this, the guest throws down his napkin and exclaims, "I ate your flower. I drank your dishwater. But I'll be God-damned if I'll eat your bug!" Okay, I just laughed out loud at this, again. Is it funny, or is it just me? Or is it the influence of too much Laura Ingalls Wilder?

Anyway, today we drove from Iowa, through Minnesota, and into South Dakota. It was a nice drive, and we visited a tiny roadside chapel in Luverne, and a little state park on the Minnesota prairie. The ranger told us there was nothing to see, but apparently he isn't looking anymore. If you are from Florida , there's plenty to look at and enjoy. So we made him take our money. When we left Clear Lake, it was blowing hard and freezing (to us). Wind chill was around 35 F. By the time we arrived in Sioux Falls, it was 83 F. We were finally able to get out of shoes and long pants.






But what I really want to talk about is accommodations. I'm not sure why, but not one hotel has managed to get it completely right so far. We stayed at one whose claim to fame was complete soundproofing. But they had their smoking and non-smoking r0oms all mixed up, and it stank. Several of the ones that claimed to have pools had empty, dirty or otherwise unavailable ones. Few have slow-closing hinges, so that when the clueless and inconsiderate guests let the doors go, they slam like cannon-fire. We don't seem to be able to teach manners anymore, so go ahead and stop the slamming mechanically. These hinges would not be available at all if someone had not already figured out that it is easier to fix doors than teach people. And it is easier to soundproof rooms than to ask guests to consider their neighbors.

Then there are the "free" as in, included, breakfasts. You either get plain bagels or something good. One place will have nothing but fruit and cereal; at the next, you can get sausage and biscuits. One will have hard-boiled eggs, another will have a broken toaster. We think each chain ought to at least have minimum standards, and whatever was available at 6 AM should be available at 9:45 (assuming breakfast is 6 - 10 AM). There should also always be protein option, not just a lot of different carbohydrates.

Then, the joy of beds. Marshmallow or firm? Loose sheets or fitted? The best has to be the LaQuinta effort to be European, with the blankets pulled up over sheets triple folded into some kind of strange origami. And would you like your pillows stuffed with Kleenex or whole raw potatoes? Not real sure what the decorative strips are all about on the bottom of the bed, but they are NOT much of a substitute for a comforter. Usually the dogs make a little nest out of them after they slide onto the floor. Probably not what the management had in mind.

Refrigerators come in all sizes, starting with none at all, running through breadbox to industrial washing machine. Some have freezers, some don't, some are caked with ice. I am baffled by the ones with tilted door shelves but nothing to hold items in. Every microwave is a new adventure, too.

And what is it with the postage-stamp bedside tables, one per room (that may sleep as many as four adults)? Our usual routine on arrival is to unplug the clock radio and stick it in a drawer, put the phone on the bottom shelf or on the floor, and remove all the little plastic advertising signs. This gives us enough room to put our glasses on the top when we shut off the lights.

Hmmm. I think I'll save restaurants for tomorrow.