The trip to Albuquerque was… ahhh... interesting. The “landing” even more so, interesting like in the Chinese curse.
The Weather forecast as seen on the TV before we left our last motel predicted storms, or at least rain from Albuquerque through Texas and on into Mexico. Oh well, we’d collected enough bugs on the windshield before parking the night before that some rain combined with the new wiper blades sounded like a good thing. Clouds late in the day heading west also sounded like a bonus.
Tiredness has been building up a little each day, and today before noon I was ready for more coffee. Of course I’m still on Central time body-wise, so 4AM I’m alert despite what the clock says. Noon mean’s I’m dragging. Our route was fairly bare of open rest areas around then, and of course I’d passed a recent one I didn’t really quite need yet. When I finally, despite coffee, also needed a short nap- typical when I drive a long day- I'd barely laid my head down when the dog decided NOW! RIGHT NOW! NOT A SECOND LATER! Walking her of course meant I was wide awake again, as the walking area was nowhere delineated, just all the prohibited spots were. Those were everywhere anything green was visible. So we both got plenty of exercise. I'm beginning to get used to these new doggy poo bags. The others I've had all were an easy peel off the little roll and an easy tug on the perforated line to separate. These had a very well hidden perffed line so I always have to lick my fingers (still clean of course), rub both outsides of the bag to separate them, insert my hand and push to the bottom of the bag to even locate where the perffed area is. Then I can tear it off the roll, and even while my hand is still inside the bag, tuck the roll back together and stuff it into the little pouch which is velcroed onto her walking leash, before I can use it to pick up her piles. It has caused me in low light to have to search for where she actually went after that much delay At least I know it's within range of the leash and the general direction. I've never lost a "dump" yet.
Early in the afternoon the clouds started building, first big fluffy columns, topping off in huge spreading anvils, round and each covering large miles in area and growing as we watched. Unlike MN storm clouds, they weren’t breaking through their tops, just widening. No sooner would one form than another nearby one would, and as we drove we saw the next and the next. Soon one of the biggest “grew” a dark squared column from its bottom. Our next view of that one was a central few stripes of rain dropping, then some on one end while the central rain shower solidified and grew wide. More and more ribbons of rain dropped from it. Of course, since I was looking for a cleaner windshield, none of the rain was within 20 miles of our location, and 50 miles may well have been a reasonable guess. Distance is deceptive out here sometimes. More clouds were forming, all looking like the smooth underside of a mushroom cap with no stem. None of the others were raining as we watched, and well before we approached our motel all were to the east of us.
While checking in, the weather station was on the office TV. All the storms were starting east of Albuquerque and sliding off to the southeast. At least it made unloading the car simple. That may have been the best part of the night.
Once at the motel, I reminded our clerk we’d asked for a first floor room (no elevators here) if they didn’t have a handicapped one open. They didn’t. She checked her computer and announced she was giving us her last open first floor room! Say what? We just got lucky? Those requests on the phone don’t matter? (A later conversation over a different problem gave her the chance to explain that we got the last listed with our requested beds in it as well. By then I'd begun to think they knew it was so awful that they'd let it sit vacant since the last guest had it forced on them several weeks previously. Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit for sensitivity.)
At least the room had a parking spot right by the door. The key worked for Steve, and I started hauling stuff in. All of it. Not all in the car, just all we needed for the night, fell to me to haul in. Steve’s back has fallen victim to some road bumps on this trip so I’m the carrier person. Last motel had a cart so everything could be loaded and hauled in one trip. Not this one. Steve discovered immediately that there was one set-up of towels for the room. By set-up, they meant one bath towel and one hand towel. No washcloth, so the hand towel made a very bulky washcloth. He went to call the front desk only to find that the cord connecting phone to wall jack had been removed. I walked back to the office to let them know we couldn't call them and why, plus requesting that extra set of linens, but housekeeping hadn’t returned to drop off any by the time I got back to the room.
We also had no ice bucket, nor even ice as their machine was broken, no cups for water, no coffee pot set-up, no mini-fridge, no microwave, no tissues, no safety bars in the bathroom, no bath mat, no hand-held shower head, no shampoo. (I brought some of that.) I had to figure out the heating system because the room was freezing even though the day was quite warm and we’d had the AC on in the car since about 11. Fortunately the system was easy to figure out, a front wall model with individual controls rather than one in the ceiling which does what somebody else wants it to despite whatever one does with the controls. It had merely been set to AC for 60 degrees! I put that up to 72, switched to heat, and it immediately jumped to 84 so I had to bring it back down. Who’d set the thing so your two choices were 60 and 82? Steve just commented a few minutes later he wasn’t getting heat any more so I checked the unit out again. Its lights are all set correctly, and I can change the numbers to get it going again, but nope. No heat or fan is functioning at the moment. Not any AC either, though we don't want any anyway. I only checked for informational purposes. Steve has sweats handy. I located a fleece shirt in the car, but either I didn’t pack sweat pants (I mean, why? Really? I have some in AZ but didn't anticipate a need for them during the trip, per forecasts) or just couldn’t find them in the car in the dark, without tearing it apart with people watching to see what it contained. It’ll be OK, I have extra socks and a cuddly dog. The beds are covered with three sheets each, the top one masquerading as a spread. Easier to launder, I suppose. Of course they are tucked so that when you pull it open to climb in, the bottom (flat) sheets come out from under the mattress as well.
We tried the water later for a little clean-up before bed. It isn’t hot, even after several minutes. No point wasting it further. It can't be just because everybody who’s not here used it all, can it? I tried to put the plug in the sink, but there wasn’t a plug. No internal stopper either, although the metal thing to lift/drop it was in its hole behind the faucet. Not attached to anything since I could lift it completely out. But it was there, faking it. I advised Steve when he washed his hands that he needed to be careful to keep his ring on.
Oh yeah, by “everybody here” it turns out at nearly 9PM there are 5 cars in the parking lot, at least on this side. Our room is on the first of two floors, number 124, about halfway down. So, probably a hundred rooms? Taking the dog out revealed 6 vehicles on the front side. Unfortunately, there apparently haven’t been enough dogs through here to leave scent so she knows where to go. I’m beginning to sense a pattern here, doncha think?
Tonight was one of the days when we actually wanted to watch TV. AGT is on, the finals, and we’ve been watching all season. Once the channel was found - screwy remote/guide system - we got the program once it was time, but with volume loud enough to annoy people driving by! Eventually that was fixed, but not before the dog act finished with a loud soundtrack. Once volume was located, it led to locating mute to use during commercials. Yay! Something works! It's not all bad here.
It’s not like we can go online from the room. I can do plain word processing and once home, post these on my blog. Every few minutes a little window pops up covering my screen demanding I “join” for $4. It's not really an issue since I tend not to trust public access wi-fi for security, the reason I don't post till I'm home. Besides, if I posted this right as I write it, it'd be missing a lot of details about this "unique" (one hopes) room.
Meantime we've been in the room two hours, want to change out of street clothes, but are still waiting for housekeeping to show up with the towels first. Sure, we can hold off on that shower till tomorrow after we're home, but who's going to answer the door in a state of undress if somebody actually does show up?
Besides we can't actually lock the door beyond closing it so it requires a key card. No chain, though the holes from a previous one are in the wall. We can't keep housekeeping out. On the flip side we can't use our own card to get back in, so somebody has to stay behind (Steve of course: I'm more mobile) if the other one goes out. Our key only worked that first time. That seems to be a thing here too. While I was checking in earlier, the fellow from the adjoining room came into the office to complain about his key not working except for the first time too. He was advised to use both his keys together, both pushing an and pulling out simultaneously. What the...? As I was unloading the car he was outside their room talking with housekeeping, then left. I don't know if they came back. Anyway his solution wouldn't have worked for us because we only were given one key. Yes, she knew there were two of us. After all, our room needed two beds. It's not like the dog gets her own.
But hey, we're going to sleep just fine, snug and secure whether we actually are or not, right? And truth be told, there are actually some good things about this room. The TV actually does work just fine, particularly after one figures out the volume control. The floor is solid, so long as you can ignore the plethora of black gouges dug out of whatever the flooring is all over it. Do realize a few steps on it rends the bottom of one's feet solid black, ready for instant transfer to the formerly white sheets. The mirror works, no caveats there. So do the lights. The beds are the good old-fashioned kind so one can sit up and one's feet are on the floor, not ten inches off it so you have to slide off. There actually is a chair, a kind of molded fake wood on apparently sturdy metal tube legs, guaranteed to securely hold an average ten-year-old. We declined to test it's capacity to hold Steve, for example, putting a carry-on in it instead. There was no luggage rack for one thing, no dresser but a couple sets of small shelves sticking out of the wall to hold shoes or similar, no place to hang a coat or hangers for whatever. Each bed had one of those horizontal shelves next to it for, say, cell phones and car keys.
3:21 AM. We’re both awake. The room is a pleasant temperature. I’ve heard the heat come on at least once, lasting for about 45 seconds. In between something drips. Loudly. It seems to come from that side of the room, so I got up to see if it had been raining and we had a leak. The parking lot is dry. Neighbors are outside talking. Yes we can hear them, even though they’re not being loud. We can also hear the freeway traffic, separated as we are from it by a chain link fence. The drip might be coming from the AC/heater, but I see no evidence of it on the floor. No sounds from next door, so it seems they didn’t come back or at least got a different room. I guess it depends on whether they were smart? They seemed young and sturdy enough that their excuse for staying put wouldn’t have been like ours and trying to avoid reloading/unloading the car in such a short amount of time to head down the road. My shoulders already ache enough from the first batch of trips from the car. Arthritis is a bitch.
Steve turned on the TV to the weather channel, quietly. Somebody may actually be sleeping, after all, despite the evidence. it’s going to be 105 today in Phoenix. Glad the car AC works. We should be there early enough for the house to cool down before bed. Before we leave we turn off nearly everything at the circuit breaker box, then put a padlock on it. Yes, it’s been needed, ‘nuff said. We also this time requested a “hard shut down” from the gas company after last year’s snafu. Last year’s failure to do so caused billing problems for months, and rose its ugly head again last spring. The water will be hot enough for late day showers since the pipe runs through the attic so long as we take short ones and space them out. I’ll have them come back to turn the gas back on in a week or so. We can microwave food for a bit until we get the stove/oven back on, or grill out back. The dishwasher heats itself electrically during the cycle. So no hurry.
Maybe I’ll try to lie down again for a bit. We can’t get breakfast/coffee until 6:30. (Turned out later we were wrong: 24 hour drive through.) At least the McDonalds is just a block away. We need to get Steve some tea there too. He's got his travel mug, but no ice to go with his tea, of which we still have plenty in the car. There was a bit left over when he woke up so he decided to finish it before packing up. Without ice or a mini-fridge, nothing would be cold until we shopped. Unfortunately, his first sip of tea got spat across the room! He thought there was a cockroach inside. He was ready to point it out to me on the floor after squishing, but I was busy for a moment, so he went to dump the dregs into the sink to rinse it out for packing away. In the process, he discovered his count was off: there had been two!
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Before proofing and posting this, now that we're home and somewhat unpacked, taking a break, I looked at my email. It seems that last motel wants me to give them a rating. Was everything all right? What do you think? How about just a link to this? By the way, our motel was a Motel 6 in Albuquerque, on Coors Road, west a bit from where I-25 crosses I-40. Plan your Albuquerque stop wisely.
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