We drove out to Missouri (from Eastern PA) to visit family this past week, and went balls deep on the front-end by getting a nice hotel suite right over the Indiana/Ohio border. Great experience, ate like swine, super amenities, pools, workout rooms, etc. Really broke up the 14 hour drive nicely. However, the way back meant going the equivalent distance (9 hours) and stopping somewhere in West Virginia or Western Pennsylvania. I swallowed hard, was firm in my decision that we weren't going to break the bank on a hotel room after renting a minivan, gassing up, incidentals, etc on our Missouri trip. $85 to stay a night at the xxxxx hotel (name withheld due to me suddenly growing a conscience). Boring blog post so far, right? Hold on.
The second we saw the oversized pillars supporting a sub-standard structure, we knew something wasn't right. We walked into the lobby to find 1970's meets Poconos cabin theme coupled with stale cigarette smoke and some cheap air neutralizer - not even a freshener, but merely a neutralizer. They apparently gave up on anything smelling 'good' so they said 'screw it, let's just make it not smell like a smokey whorehouse.'
We walked up to our room and passed what appeared to be a construction crew staying for a few nights. Which is great, cause none of them smoke or use foul language. There was the token 'old coot/codger' in overalls with no shirt underneath and a long white goatee in a rocking chair rambling about yesteryear and growing up on a farm. Like, this caricature of a human being actual existed on the way to our room. Think token Deliverance scene reference, combined with The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn 1-4 horror movies. Somehow southern accents made their way into the equation. Keep walking kids, don't breathe the air.
Shitty Buckcherry or Quiet Riot were blasting from one of the rooms, along with the smell of weed. Friggin weed. At a seedy hotel. We kept our heads down and reached our room - smokey smell continues (despite being a smoke-free room). Spotty internet (whatever), and a proud PROUD sign on the bed talking about how the hotel takes pride in not washing sheets if the same guest stays multiple nights. If that's the future of 'green', I want off. Luckily our youngest ensured it would be closer to 'yellow' by morning. We had our kids sleep in their sleeping bags ON TOP of the beds in the off chance there was unwashed construction guy jizz lurking all over the sheets. We probably left with the pubes of five different men and trapped farts from late June all over our legs but whatever, I think we'll be ok.
Shitty Buckcherry or Quiet Riot were blasting from one of the rooms, along with the smell of weed. Friggin weed. At a seedy hotel. We kept our heads down and reached our room - smokey smell continues (despite being a smoke-free room). Spotty internet (whatever), and a proud PROUD sign on the bed talking about how the hotel takes pride in not washing sheets if the same guest stays multiple nights. If that's the future of 'green', I want off. Luckily our youngest ensured it would be closer to 'yellow' by morning. We had our kids sleep in their sleeping bags ON TOP of the beds in the off chance there was unwashed construction guy jizz lurking all over the sheets. We probably left with the pubes of five different men and trapped farts from late June all over our legs but whatever, I think we'll be ok.
In order to kill time, my wife took the three kids to the pool while I went through my work emails. There was a layer of philm (phylm? film?) on the water, and some random Dave Chappelle look-a-like in jeans and a wife-beater lumbered over and put his mangy feet in the water whilst smoking a cigarette. "Ooooo weeeeeeeee. Ooooooooo weeee it's cold." Check please. Fam was back in the hotel room faster than you could say 'Michael Brown'. The kids were whimpering and not like their normal jovial selves, and I think they always expected hotels to be nice (not like we actually stay at super nice hotels, but rather 'nice enough' hotels). We agreed we would get up at 4am and get the hell out of dodge as soon as we could. Kill time till they get tired, make them crash and then leave while they are still half-asleep so they could lay in the minivan while we finish the trip. Screw the continental breakfast, as the muffins probably had crack rocks in them and the omelets had used maxi pads (no wings). I'll take Dunkies at that hour any day.
We drove through the sketchy surrounding area where everyone had underbites, cutoff flannel sleeveless shirts, weird hairlines, ten inches of flab dangling from their triceps, three quarters jean shorts (jorts) that stop at the shins, fleshy jowls, and gyrating jaws but no dentures. Naturally a Denny's was nearby, which allowed us to kill another hour. Our youngest, however, felt the need to act like the biggest dickhead in his 3.5 year existence. He wouldn't eat, kept talking about how he needed to poop (I'm not putting his ass on one of those STD tawlets), and refused to do anything but stack jelly packets into a mock St Louis Arch to relive his vacation experience. That gets old after a few minutes. Our oldest asked to run to the bathroom - not to pee, mind you, but just have a private place so that he could cry since the town/hotel/sights and sounds were so depressing. Our daughter continued whimpering, at one point asking 'if we are going to get any diseases from the hotel room'? I had no simple answer for her, so I allowed the children to just fart freely at the table without fear of consequence. We didn't have appetites per se, but rather stomach knots that needed to get covered in unhealthy fried foods. Thank God kids eat free on Tuesdays.
We got back to the room without getting butt-raped and forced ourselves to go right to bed. Out the door by 5:00am, with token peel-out noise as we left the Hillbilly Hotel, never to return. Lesson learned - don't cheap out on a family hotel room. Make sure it costs no less than $150. If you're on a family trip, you're probably paying out the ass anyway, so what's another $50 for better quality? Now please excuse me, I have to go think of ways to get myself off the family shit list.......
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